As with most maps that represent information using color, red/blue election maps are great for communicating categorical data (in this case, which candidate won county X?). But they don’t do a very good job conveying magnitude (how important is county X compared to other counties?).

For example, L.A. County alone has a population of over 10 million. That’s more than the combined population of 10 entire states. Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming together have a total population of just over 9 million.

Election cartograms

One alternative that has become popular this year is to map the election results using a cartogram, something Professor Mark Newman at the University of Michigan has been advocating for a long time. His maps deform the shape of each state/county so that each area is sized proportional to its population. The one below also uses a spectrum of colors, rather than just red and blue, to show how close the vote was in each county.

I like cartograms and use them often myself, but they do have shortcomings. Namely, the shapes can become unfamiliar, making it difficult to recognize what the different areas are. Some people also find the deformations weird and uncomfortable to look at.

Another possibility is to use a tiled cartogram, like this one by FiveThirtyEight. It’s less weird-looking than a continuous-area cartogram (whether that is a good or bad thing) and the locations are more recognizable. Tiled cartograms work great for quickly summarizing state-level results, as they are used on FiveThirtyEight.

However, it gets increasingly difficult to build maps like this as you move to finer levels of granularity. At the county level, the hexagons would have to be extremely small to get the sizes and shapes right. For all intents and purposes, it would become a continuous-area cartogram like the map above it.

Prism map

A 3D map like the one at the top, sometimes called a prism map is another possibility. By extending each region into the 3rd dimension, it’s possible to show the relative importance of each region while retaining the map’s shape, keeping the areas recognizable. In this case, the height of each county corresponds to its total number of votes, though it could just as easily show population or share of the electoral vote.

I'm an NYC-based entrepreneur (my newest project: Blueshift) and adjunct instructor at UPenn. I'm fascinated by data visualization and the ways that data is transforming our understanding of the world. I spend a lot of time with my face buried in Excel, and when I find something interesting I write about it here and also as a Guardian Cities and Huffington Post contributor.More about my background

Great map, Max — nice work. I think it would give an even more realistic representation if you normalized the height of each county by land area (height = votes/land area). Then the VOLUME of each county would be a represent the number of votes. This would result in even greater vertical exaggeration. (One reason I noticed this was the height of AK which has very low population density.)

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Thanks. Thought about doing it that way. In this one, NYC’s four boroughs hardly appear, even though account for about as many votes as LA. I went with it anyway because the first thing you notice is the height, and it might be confusing if the height doesn’t itself have any real meaning.
I think your right though. Mapping by volume would probably be “more correct.” Maybe I’ll do an alternate version of this one.

Joe

That would be awesome — I’d really like to see it! The height itself actually would have meaning — voter density (voters/area).

Kerry Hart

Last I looked non citizens are not allowed to vote and their votes don’t count. That lowers the California votes bar. Gregg Phillips @JumpVote

We have verified more than three million votes cast by non-citizens.

We are joining .@TrueTheVote to initiate legal action. #unrigged

9:47 AM – 13 Nov 2016

the 3 million number is removed from the popular vote count, it would mean that Trump won the popular vote as well. Clinton was only ahead by 630,877 votes.

Mr. Phillips’claims his organization plans to join with Truethevote.org to sue in order to obtain voter information in the states that have high populations of illegals, such as California
Since 1996, a federal law has prohibited non-citizens from voting in federal elections, punishing them by fines, imprisonment, inadmissibility, and deportation.
The Virginia report, which was the first to be released this week, found 1,046 non-citizens registered to vote in eight counties, who “cast a total of 186 votes between 2005 and 2015.” – See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/10/strangers-in-our-own-land-the-non-citizen-voter-fraud-disaster#sthash.R793lv3R.dpuf
So lets do this lets see how many fraud votes are out there and deport the illigals who should not have voted and are breaking the law then lets crack down on the states, that by the way are won by Hillary, who have some type of voting fraud. Do you all really want to press this subject?

ALM2015

Did all the map manipulation make you feel better about Republicans eviscerating the dem party? If L.A. County has 10 million people – how many are legal vs. illegal? How many illegal votes did HRC get? I’ll wait

Euro Yank

Excellent! This is a real eye-openner and has helped me explain the election results to my european neighbors who can not fathom what just happened.

pleaseanyonebutobama

THIS is EXACTLY why the Electoral college was put into place so that the leeches that suck on the government teat and don’t contribute much to society that reside in large urban hell holes wouldn’t have the final say in a Presidential election. More than ever, I am convince that the electoral college is a necessity considering voter fraud, illegals hiding in large urban areas etc. The farmers, people in rural areas have had enough and came out in droves to make American great again instead of voting for a career, lying, corrupt politician. Without a doubt, wikileaks proved it.

Justin Craft

Thank God for the electoral college… Can you imagine if those 10 major cities determined who won each year? The rest of the nation wouldn’t even have a voice in the matter. And that goes both ways. WAY more counties are red, imagine if we went that route instead? Popular vote just like the county vote doesn’t make sense. State/Electoral vote is the only way that all of the country has a voice in the presidency.

Albert Ruiz

Why makes people in the country so special they deserve more vote than people who live in the city?

Some years the red area has more people. This year, most of the country is in the blue. You want your voice heard, but you don’t think people in the blue areas (*most* of the country) deserve the same.

Jordan

Nobody should be subjected to a ruler they didn’t choose for themselves. But since that’s the system we have: The electoral college is the only thing stopping people on 15% of the landmass of this country from controlling people on the other 85%.

I wish people would take a serious look at secession. It makes no sense to have a central Leviathan government controlling everybody on a landmass this size. We should have 50 independent countries that work and trade cooperatively with one another.

Ideally, I’d like to see secession down to the township level. Or even the household level. Nobody is fit to rule over anybody else. And nobody who has not been expressly given the permission to make decisions on the behalf of another individual has the right to make said decisions.

Black Eyed Peach

While your points are well-taken, we would need self-responsible, moral people to pull it off, something that doesn’t appear to be likely any time soon.

It could also be argued that a person who needed ruling doesn’t have the wherewithal to select his own ruler… and a people who did not need ruling would have had the wherewithal to develop a system without a ruler. 🙂

rgentbuilders

This system you’re talking about already exists. The States are sovereign under the Constitution. 90% of what the federal gov. is doing is unconstitutional and the people have been robbed of their representation in the House by about 11000 Reps. No Rep is supposed to exceed 30000 constituents. Right now it’s based on apportionment which was unConstitutionally enacted back in the 1920’s. It’s time to demand our Representation back.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

The way you describe the states sounds very much like what’s described the in the Declaration of Independence, and what’s advocated today by Libertarians. Why go the extra step of secession though? Seems like it would take a lot of additional overhead for each state, let alone township, to set up a military, foreign relations, monetary system, etc. Why not just reduce the power of the central government?

If the major population centers had no food imports from rural America, the shelves would run bare within 3 days. These country and rural areas also used to manufacture the clothes the large populations in the cities wear, but due to NAFTA and ‘free trade’, the Ports in the Eastern and Western cities now service cheap imports (trade deficit generation … thus T-Bond debt), and the rural areas have been screwed. It is no surprise that urban dwellers are completely out of touch with rural areas, or the synergy that *should* exist economically between the hand that feeds and the hand that eats, is given the respect it would deserve in a healthy nation state (not that globalists give a damn about the ‘nation state’).

This is why the 50 States were setup effectively as semi-autonomous republics in their own right under a Federal structure, and why every State was given 2 Senators each, which is also disproportionate representation as per populations … otherwise California, Illinois, and New York, would effectively enthrone the Democrats in a *pure* democracy, which people such as Hamilton and Madison railed against as a despotism, for GOOD reason. A purely service economy within urban areas which CANNOT create a trade surplus (it simply cannot), requires a greater voice to be given to LABOR WORKERS remaining in the agricultural geography.

It’s just so easy for cafe latte sipping urban office workers to completely disregard the macroeconomic realities that existed in the pre-globalized United States (the sane nation which hadn’t yet been sold out to multinational interests). The voices of the other – more important – segments of the U.S., were heard loud and clear on Nov 8th, and the Electoral College worked EXACTLY how it was supposed to. Take a look at the Brexit vote map by county … exactly the same thing … Cities vs suburbs and rural areas … a complete rejection of Globalization and the shipment of all important *human labor* to sweatshop dictatorships and despotisms overseas. Yet ‘trendy’ urban denizens like to protest about ‘minimum wage’ and ‘workers rights’ whilst they tap away on iPhones made in Chinese sweatshops.

WAKE UP OVER IN URBAN WONDERLAND !!!… and don’t keep biting the hand that feeds.

JustTheWorst

Oh, this is a fun game.

If rural production areas and farms didn’t have the demand from urban centers, they’d be cowpie kicking subsistence farmers within a month, or be forced to reckon with gasp! the global market they abhor so much. Rather than look to their urban counterparts, who until extremely recently made up more of the manufacturing base, for a consolidated voting bloc, they chose to focus on their own identity politics, of race, religion, and lifestyle, than focusing on pushing policies of meaningful change.

They remain so focused on their purity calls to the Founding Fathers, that they never stop and look to see which of their urban counterparts may agree with them and be willing to help. It can never be working together, it must always be an us-vs-them, since rural people can never, ever be wrong, and if you grew up in the country, surely you must live there forever, and if you’re in the city, you’re only ever thinking of city-people.

It’s just so easy for gun toting, out-for-themselves country folk to disregard the macroeconomic realities that their children have been busting their ass to adapt to, because their parents and rural neighbors sold their country out to the wolves because something something Christian Nation. The voices of the know-nothings and a seething blame-anybody-but-myself underbelly won due to a 250 year old compromise with slave holders and they STILL can’t admit that a majority of this country doesn’t agree with them. Yet ‘good’ rural folk like to protest about ‘immigrants’ and ‘headscarves’ because they think of themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, instead of someone who can benefit from proposed workers’ rights legislation.

WAKE UP OVER IN RURAL WONDERLAND!!!… and don’t keep biting the hand that looks different than yours.

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

yes … exactly … it is an economic synergy … URBANRURAL. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Pissed off ‘liberals’ (new word for authoritarian babies, I have heard) from coastal cities can’t even feed themselves though, so if a civil war were ever to break out, I know who would lose.
GUNS ***AND*** BUTTER

>>> “instead of someone who can benefit from proposed workers’ rights legislation.”
You mean all the cheap imports coming from slave labor countries that the coastal city ports service? … and the Democrat wetdream TPP that creates a multi-lateral Corporate Court that can overrule and fine Sovereign Governments for enforcing labor rights and product and health standards? Clinton was the poster-witch for these parasites, 30x more Wall Street money, and all the Multi-nationals and their MSM whores whoring out themselves to wrap up the brains of ‘liberal’ urbanites who’s #1 priority seems to be arguments over whether gender is biological or part of an existential necessity. For your information, I was born and grew up in a big city, and a city family, but had to get the hell out of this sh*t hole when I realized that the majority of the people living in it were totally nuts … all their priorities are upside down, and social dysfunction is epidemic. One thing I can say about country people, is they know what the word ‘Nation’ means, and why the ‘Rule of Law’ is important, and I have met very few racist people compared with the city. Cities are the meltingpot of racial identity politics, and the Democrats are the race-baiting party extraordinaire.

Sara Engelbert

So true.

Joseph Ochlak

Yeah, “turn me loose big city” and “keep your retirement and your so called social security.” Well the corporations have kept your retirement, and now the Republican Party will try to keep your Social Security which you paid into all your life. You’ll be left with nothing but grass to eat! Real smart there fella!

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

Republican party steal my social security? Are you under the impression that the Democrats had some intention of ensuring that it was ‘funded’? You do understand that we live in a Keynesian world, where the Bill Clinton administration, under Larry Summers, totally deregulated the financial industry allowing the securitization buble and bankrupting of the US Treasury? YEs, Bush and the neo-cons played right along, but trump has not only beaten Clinton and the DNC to a pulp, he has consigned the old school neo-con segments of the Republican Party to the shadows. Basically, he has effected a revolution within the Republican Party.

You need to start becoming introspective as a Democrat, to understand who exactly your beloved Obama and Clinton’s actually work for … and it ain’t the average social security slave, it is the offshore complex led by leading EUrocrats and pro-EU devils such as George Soros. Wakeup Democratic Party sheep … you have been fleeced!!!

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Intelligent comment. Neither of the two parties work for the interests of the avg American. And the fact that one single guy has succeeded in knocking them both down is incredible. More of the country should give credit where it is due.

That said, what’s a smart person like you doing engaging in petty tribalism? Your team is more impotant because it produces the food? Talk about needing introspection. You claim to support Trump because he will be good for the country, but your arguments tell me you care less about the country, and more about proving your team is superior to the other team.

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

I don’t have a team, I vote on issues. Unfortunately, however, we seem to have a dipolar party system that doesn’t offer much real flexibility. On that front, though, an intellectually honest person would be able to identify Trump as a much more socially liberal representative of what used to be a chickenhawk gaggle of neo-cons, all of which bitterly fought to keep him out of the office. Trump just beat the GOP and the DNC. So, for showing his independence compared to the alternatives, I believe the man deserves the benefit of the doubt. The Democratic Republic has shown its inherent robustness in being the only nation on earth that provides such a strong check and balance against globalist offshore power players. The US was built in the 19th century on protectionist principles and it served Americans very well. In the 1970’s, only 4% of US GDP was dependent on foreign trade, the rest was purely domestic economy … ONLY 4% … now it is more than a quarter and all the TNC’s have moved offshore. It’s about damn time that a capitalist builder (rather than crony-capitalist asset stripper) came to power in the US. God forbid an Executive that favors its own nation and demos over foreign powers would lead the way for other countries in the world to reject the offshore power players and their tendencies to turn the world into a plantation empire where all rights are aggregated up into opaque corporate councils (TTP-TTIP-TISA) such as Obama and Clinton were obviously HIRED to create.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Yes, Trump is more socially liberal in some ways, more socially conservative in others. He doesn’t really conform to the traditional 1-dimensional political spectrum.

You think he deserves the benefit of the doubt just for being an alternative to the DNC/GOP? It’s great that he knocked the two parties down, but personally I set the bar for my support a bit higher. Maybe I’m just cynical, but I have a hard time buying the lying, unethical billionaire who refuses to come clean with his finances is now a champion for America’s working class. Wish I was as trusting as you, and I hope I’m wrong.

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

>>>but personally I set the bar for my support a bit higher.
Ok then, show your cards, did you vote for the Clinton Foundation and the Gulf Cooperation Council?

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

It’s important to me to keep this site as non-partisan as possible, so I’m not going to say who I voted for. But your point is well taken. You can only set the bar as high as the next best alternative, which is this case is extremely low. Not a fair comment on my part.

The truth is Trump has many of the qualities I’ve been wishing for in a president. And I even agree with many of his views. But that is outweighed by so many negative things. He may be a return to the country’s protectionist principles, but he is a threat to free speech, freedom of religion, and the Constitution. His behavior is erratic, and he’s the first president I could see provoking WW3. He is extremely divisive and has polarized this country even more than it already was. And he lies so much, it’s hard to know where he really stands on anything.

He may be a better option than Hillary, and he may even turn out to be a great president. But for the time being, I don’t see his victory as cause for celebration (would also be true of Hillary).

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

>>>His behavior is erratic, and he’s the first president I could see provoking WW3.

The thing about his erraticism is, that if you read the Art Of The Deal, it is actually a technique to invoke cognitive dissonance and uncertainty into the party you are about to make a deal with, and I don’t think most people can identify this technique for what it is – genius – because they are too used to watching career politicians; who, by the way, do exactly the same thing behind closed doors (public and private faces) but don’t ever get any pro-American deals done. Trump is different because he uses the media as a vector to deliver his attacks on the people he will in the future be engaging for a deal (ie, Mexico).

Say for example you want a deal with another country relating to trade. First you come out and publicly antagonize against that country based on something you’re not happy with. Then, on a different occasion, you praise them for something. Then you come out and criticize, maybe even offend their sensibilities. Then you praise … rinse repeat … then you ACTUALLY have a meeting with them. You are then 100% more likely to come out with a deal that is favorable to your position, and your opponent in the deal will give ground, because they will want to appease you as quick as possible rather than draw more fire, because they are aware that you are actually not afraid to get in the ring. This is straight out of the Art Of The Deal, and anyone who uses such a tactic in business will succeed on more occasions than lose.

Take for instance Obama’s recent visit to China. They didn’t roll out a red carpet, and wouldn’t give him the airport stairs, so he had to get off the other side of the plane with the inbuilt stairs. They humiliated him. He was totally disrespected, because personally he has been towing the globalism M.O.; meaning he has already sold out to internationalism and they simply see him as a poodle to the TNC’s that already moved all of their factories to China. Enter Trump. Trump will publicly criticize China, bloody them in the eyes of the media, scare the crap out of them … and then when he visits China … [drum roll] … they will roll out a red carpet, give him stairs and a band will play to greet him. He will get respect AND a deal … this is actually Chinese culture. They actually respect people more if they stand up for themselves, and they can’t stand spineless people. It kinda seems contrary to logic, but this is the way alpha-male psychology works in the real world, regardless of how we would envision the real world to work. Everything in life is about ‘cutting deals’, and career politicians in the western world are seriously disabled at getting good deals in the current climate where developing countries and TNC’s are writing all the rules, and the ‘leaders’ of the west are reading their teleprompters and not wanting to step on anyone’s toes … this is how one gets totally screwed, and its been this way for decades because of Republicans and Democrats who don’t themselves live in the international business environment.

And I do have many reservations about Trump, believe me … his pick of Steve Mnuchin as Tr.Sec., is highly disturbing (Skull & Bones; 2nd generation Goldman Sachs *Partner* and not just a salaried exec; Worked for George Soros for God sakes in his offshore hedge fund [evil] empire.) … I’m also a little worried about Wilbur Ross and his Rothschild Inc., connections … Rothschild of course having recently opened their Reno Nevada ‘offshore’ operations to suck offshore hedgers into continental US tax evasion structures using large domestic real estate operations as loop-holes. Very disturbing but perhaps they have become Robin Hoods and understand the game? Casinos hire previous casino cheating pro’s to catch casino cheats, it just makes great sense. Only time will tell though.

As for WWIII … I disagree, because I believe that Clinton and Trump were just as likely as each other to create a big war in order to cover up the inevitable economic collapse, which is hardwired into US destiny since the debt-money Fed was created in 1913. The owners of the TBTF who are the lions share of Fed members, also own the large military industrial firms, who only make money if bombs are being dropped. If a war starts under Trump, it will of course be blamed on him, but it was in the works for a LONG time, and Clinton was itching to trigger the NATO-Russia tension in Ukraine and Syria-Iraq, in order to free up the pipeline corridor (Nabbucco + some) from Qatar through Syria and Turkey into the EU Energy Market. This is why the Clinton Foundation and Obama have been so close to the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and leaders such as Merkel and Hollande (the Barcelona Process; aka, Union for the Mediterranean, which is probably the worst idea in the history of western democracies, and which only Trump has been publicly criticizing as an insane dynamic in current world trends. Everyone else has cowered in criticizing the true aims of Political Islam groups such as the Muslim Bro. in fear of being called ‘racist’, even though religious ideology is not an issue of race. I like that Trump doesn’t give a damn about P.C., and this is actually what won him the election and the votes of many people who voted for Obama at least once, proving that, perhaps, they weren’t ‘racist’?).

As for the country being more divided than ever, I don’t think anyone can blame this on Trump because it has been building for decades organically. You can see this disparity between *Service* driven Urban centers which are high-population, and rural *Labor* driven areas that were Industrial and/or Agricultural, and this divide can be shown on political maps across Europe as well. This is a *Developed* country trend against globalization, and this dynamic has been building since the 1970’s when Nixon was forced to take the USD off of the gold standard – this was a Rep+Dem trend created purely by trade deficits created by overseas forays such as the Vietnam War (LBJ’s baby) – launching the neo-liberal ‘big bangs’, especially fuelling the City of London and its tax haven empire. TNC’s have become the rulers of this world especially since this event, and Trump has made quite clear that multi-lateral globalism (fascist corporate councils which would have been created by TTP-TTIP-TISA), will not be allowed to form, and that bilateral diplomacy between governments will remain, as they should. Technically, if he follows through with this, this would make Trump more similar to FDR than Reagan; which is totally ironic. Nobody can blame Trump for a phenomenon that is appearing across the western world, and has divided urban centers from more rural areas and suburbia. Look at the Brexit referendum map and tell me that Trump caused this too? Trump is only a symptom of this division, not the cause of it, and if this larger context is not taken into account I would have to call out someone making this point as being intellectually dishonest. This is not ‘racism’, because this is a purely political and economic reactionary movement. Sure, some white nationalists will feel bolstered by this, but I can tell you right now that their recruiting mechanisms, which are reactionary, were fuelled much more by extreme left-wing leaders being in power. Nobody, for instance, has helped actual neo-Nazis in Germany and Austria recruit new members than Angela Merkel.

Don’t confuse Trumps’s erraticism for lunacy, when it is the fundamental case of a master deal maker executing a strategy that looks divisive, simply because he is the first businessman and non-career politician to try and change the trajectory of terribly failed political ideologies. When people at work who wouldn’t embrace process change always gave me the “this is the way we’ve always done it”, I would retort: “and that’s why efficiency and progress hasn’t improved for a decade” … everything has to change (evolve) at some point in time in order to actually move forward. All Obama did with his Cabinet picks which were 85%+ chosen from the Citi Bank (see Wikileaks exposures) advisory list, was more of the same globalism (selling US domestic prosperity to TNC offshore networks), which just made the social division between cities and country much greater … and we’re going to blame this social division on Trump? Seems a little bit blinkered … this division has been around for decades, its just that urban denizens just see 90%+ of the country as a mere ‘fly over’ zone and a geographical inconvenience. Long live the Electoral college!

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

> Everything in life is about ‘cutting deals’, and career politicians in the western world are seriously disabled at getting good deals in the current climate where developing countries and TNC’s are writing all the rules, and the ‘leaders’ of the west are reading their teleprompters and not wanting to step on anyone’s toes.

The most logical argument I’ve heard in favor of Trump yet. I like the fact he’s talking to business leaders, and doing things his own way, exactly what this country’s been needing in a president. I still think he is erratic though. It came out clearly in the debates that when he get rattled, he responds by lashing out, to his detriment.

> As for the country being more divided than ever, I don’t think anyone can blame this on Trump because it has been building for decades organically.

There is plenty of blame to go around for this. But Trump has been stoking the flames intentionally, often with bold faced lies.

> I like that Trump doesn’t give a damn about P.C., and this is actually what won him the election and the votes of many people who voted for Obama at least once, proving that, perhaps, they weren’t ‘racist’?

Man, this is a tricky topic. The word “racist” does get overused to discredit legitimate views. But some of the “I don’t care about PC” culture has also veered into some actual racism.

> this division has been around for decades, its just that urban denizens just see 90%+ of the country as a mere ‘fly over’ zone and a geographical inconvenience.

Yes, some do. Many have good intentions, but don’t understand the problems people face outside of cities. Other do sympathize but feel like they get venom spit in their face when they try to engage. It’s dangerous to generalize. I see my other comment touched a nerve. You should read it again, as well as the one before it, and consider who’s doing the blaming.

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

Ok, we can meet in the middle. I do think people are confusing his erraticism with a tried and tested deal making mechanism that is very effective though. The US is holding many Trump cards (customer is king) in world trade dynamics, which up until now it has been paid by TNC’s not to use … and along comes a Trump (life is so strange sometimes). We will see if it has all been a bluff, or whether this man is indeed intending to fire at the TNC high councils. His rhetoric was energized and blustered, which is why he won the Primary in the face of so many ‘more of the same’ mostly career politicians with stale pledges. He recognized that this was a change election (the 2008->2012->2016 swings show this), and he decided to be the only candidate offering a visible and unique change-personality. One thing is for sure, most people think he is eccentric, but he is actually a complete genius who can read people like a book but not show that he has discovered their achilles heels – a little bit like a rope-a-dope. The biggest fault of the MSM and the ‘liberal’ and neo-con establishemnt’s, is that they completely underestimated him, and then found themselves on the back foot fighting someone that they had not prepared to fight. KO.

csangos

I am coming to despise the word “deal.” Beginning to sound like gangsters talking.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Completely agree, it’s gross. But my by view, the unfortunate reality is that some of the people our country has to deal with are basically gangsters (speaking of world leaders and private business). I’m no fan of Donald Trump. In fact, he terrifies me. But his “dealmaker” mentality is one quality I think may serve the country well.

WSmith

Max, your wrong on every point. I guess you’ve missed the 12 Democrat State Attorney Generals who want to punish anyone who questions their fabrications on climate change. Or progressive college campuses declaring such phrases as “the most qualified person should get the job” as hate speech and punishable by expulsion. Then there’s Obama’s insane sabre rattling over unproven accusations toward Russia. Hillary’s asinine Libya policy that helped destabilize an entire region and her careless threats toward Putin. All while enabling the worlds most prolific sponsor of global terrorism and guaranteeing they (Iran) get nuclear warheads to place on their ICBM’s in less than a decades time…….Thoroughly indoctrinated and in total denial of reality is how I would describe your insights.

WSmith

That’s funny! Unethical billionaire? So you supported an even more unethical, corrupt, money laundering through the Clinton Foundation, pay to play schemes benefiting foreign nations, scam artist like Hillary Clinton? Max, your bar could not be set lower.

CommentorinChief

Are you saying the producers should never point out the rampant support and institutionalization of coercive theft of our property that the corrupt federal bureaucracy buys votes with? I don’t call that tribalism. I call it education.

Seeing as how civics is taught to Americans less and less every year, in favor of whatever social engineering fad is popular at the time, not educating people that obviously have no clue on how and why the country works the way it does is abdicating your duty as a productive citizen. Don’t forget that more than 10% of our population knows jack about our country’s history, values or culture because they just got here, and feels little need to assimilate into or learn about it because people like you try to silence anyone that tries to educate them.

And of course, I am not for zero taxes. If a Democrat saw a Republican arguing the extreme opposite position he should point that out as well and attempt to educate the person to a middle ground understanding.

A prime example of what I am talking about is this article, and the reporters in the main stream media that are hyping up the popular vote to try to discredit the president elect, and therefore the country, as much as possible before he even take s office. From the article: the popular vote is IRRELEVANT. Relevancy of country and city votes is IRRELEVANT. Prism maps, cartagrams, you name it maps intended to reinforce not only irrelevant facts, but intentionally spread misinformation on our civics to keep the nation as divided as possible, borders on treason at worst and is unethical and incredibly irresponsible at best. And ever major new network and leftist reporter is doing it! Just look at the avatar pictures of people SERIOUSLY asking about why we shouldn’t have a popular vote. I learned why in the 5th grade!! Mob rule means nothing to these supposedly educated and enlightened Democrat voters. The lack of logic and reason and the strange unwillingness to even Google, “Why do we have the electoral college”, is mind numbingly frustrating. Are we really that dumbed down?

Oh, yeah, the Cities are paying the tab, right. Then why are they always running in a deficit? Why do they need massive subsidies for trains, buses, subways, etc.? The larger populations States, Blue States, are in ruins, have the highest crime, the biggest deficits.

There is a narrative going around about cities being in bad shape, but the data tells a different story. Poverty is lower in cities that in rural areas. And crime is near all time lows. Some have pointed to a slight increase from 2014 to say “crime is up,” but a look at these charts will show why that doesn’t really communicate the true picture: https://twitter.com/galka_max/status/795347932543381504

That said, people rural areas are bigger givers of charity. And there are more veterans from rural areas. I don’t think it makes sense to are argue about which team is better, red or blue. Both sides contribute to the country in different ways, and we’re all just Americans anyway.

WSmith

Your crime stats are out of date. The latest FBI statistics show serious crime on the rise.

Income tax is unconstitutional and nothing but theft used to grow government beyond what the constitution allows.

Benito Camela

You moron! Do you know how many federal subsidies, including most of them coming from BLUE states the farmers (your so-called “producers”) take in every year? Also, many of them voted Democrat and continue to do so, because the Dems are subsidizing them without politicizing it like moronic Republicans tend to do. California and New York MORE than pay their fair share for the agricultural production in the so-called heartland and if there weren’t cities to produce for, many of the people call producers would be living agrarian quasi-2nd-world lives.

Mark Belk

Yes when your team is the law and order constitutional team and the other team is the socialist/communist team you bet your butt I think we are superior.

Mark Belk

Both parties suck and the republicans are no different than the democrats except who they bullshit to get votes.

Imur Dadeo

…Agreed, I know people who have influential positions in both major parties, and essentially, they say the same thing. “Never mind the big picture of solving everyday issues, if we can get our followers upset about a few hot-button narrow issues by demonizing the other side over and over again; we get more passionate contribution$, and also gain more power.” —- ie, it’s not about serving the people, it’s about the money & power grab…..meanwhile screw what’s best for the people!

We need a serious third party that will try to reign in our huge mounting debt; now at 20,000,000,000,000.00; and represent the legitimate interests of the nation as a whole. The 2-party system is not cutting it.. Got to get a better 3rd party into the national debates…..Otherwise, the Gen X, Y & Z’ers will not be able to receive social security that they’re paying to now until they’re 92 years old, if at all..If the go’vt siezed all the assets of all billionaires in the USA, it would not be enough to pay the interest on the debt, let alone the principal. ….. We don’t have 20,000 fbillionares in the USA….. Sorry Bernie, but Killing the top 1% would not solve our issues….the numbers don’t add up!

CommentorinChief

Don’t forget they will poison your drinking water and sell your children into slavery. For someone that apparently does or desires to rely on a massively corrupt political bureaucracy for your livelihood and sustenance I am surprised you forgot those two Republican scare tactics.

Here are SS facts to keep you informed of which party has done what. Neither party has done what most people think has been done.

Seeing as how the urban centers that voted overwhelmingly for Clinton have more people NOT paying into SS your point is rather mute. It is very simple to see why the biggest cities in the most elitist and leftist states received the most Democrat votes. They are stuffed with the most poor people that always vote for more of what they can get for nothing from the rest of us (through the corrupt bureaucracy called the federal government). It really is as simple as that. Hasn’t changed in a long time.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Speaking of scare tactics, you should check whatever source you’re getting that info from. Poverty is *higher* rural areas than in cities. Cities pay *more* in federal taxes per capita. And they receive *less* of it back in federal grants. Man, there is some weird info going around about cities these days…

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

SS payments and Federal Taxes are only a fraction of a much larger picture which is highly dynamic. The UrbanRural economic synergy can be highly misrepresented by such superficial bullet point statistical inferences. Federal infrastructure and other program injections into cities are far higher per capita than in Rural areas, and much rural infrastructure such as highways and power grid infrastructure serves cities. All of which also have subsidies attached etc…

As for urban denizens paying more federal taxes, this point is highly misleading:

1) Cities – especially port cities – are flushed with the proceeds of physical goods import and connected financial services, many of which might be contributing to the poverty of rural areas which otherwise are being carved out by globalism (which manifests revenue-wise in port cities and service centers). Domestic industries are taxed into oblivion by globalism and replaced by cheap imports, then don’t exist anymore, meaning they obviously are no longer paying into the Federal Revenue streams … thus we give a trophy to urban dwellers for paying more Federal Tax??? WTF? Talk about blaming the victim.

2) A much higher percentage of government workers per capita are present in cities, thus their Federal taxes are registered in those areas, but their wages were PAID OUT OF FEDERAL TAX REVENUE STREAMS !!! How about we exclude federal taxes paid by government employees when making assumptions about who ‘PAYS’ (contributes to an actual net positive Federal Tax balance) Federal tax. Talk about a deceptive data point! There is a reason why the top 10 counties for wage/salary% increases and the highest national medians are clustered around Washington D.C., in Maryland and Virginia (all 85%-95% Democratic voting areas), and why the rest of the country is in a wage/salary decline in comparison. Is the average career politician, bureaucrat, and corporate lobbyist to be given a trophy for their national service and their much higher rate of paying Federal Tax?

3) Are we talking about the *MEDIAN* Federal Taxes paid in urban areas compared to the *MEDIAN* Federal Taxes paid in rural areas? Or are we talking about averages? Because Jamie Dimon and Tony Podesta can’t really be considered professionally as net contributors to national prosperity. In economics and politics, how do we define ‘parasite’? If a parasite
sucks out 1000litres of blood, and pumps 10litres (1%) back in, is
he/she worth more than the organism that sucked out 3litres but only
paid in 1litre (33%)???

4) The SS dependence of rural areas has increased since financial globalization kicked in during the 1970’s. Are we blaming the victim here, or are we making an argument about the superiority of the average urban denizen regarding the *current* condition of the US economy, as opposed to its *potential* and past condition before globalization took hold? I thought this election (and Brexit) were based on mandates of changing global economic dynamics, not prolonging the current status-quo as Barack Obama did.

… I could go on and on about this, but perhaps a resonating quote can speak for me: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” – Mark Twain/Benjamin Disraeli

Lowering Federal tax rates, cutting bureaucrats, and perhaps imposing tariffs/costs on foreign imports, would reverse this Urban dominance over Rural America … then we will see which areas, as a *Median* pay more Federal Taxes overall, and you might be surprised that it would be people who sweat more for a living in healthy sized towns and suburbia. Financialization manifests in urban centers, not rural areas, and Financialization is a cancer.

Albert Ruiz

Dude, just look it up and you will see it’s not even close. Per capita income taxes in cites are a MULTIPLE higher than outside of cities! Sorry if that doesn’t fit the narrative where you’re the “victim” of all those evil “denizens” in cities, but why let something stupid like “facts” and “statistics” get in the way of some good old fashioned hatred of your fellow Americans.

If facts aren’t your thing, I know of a few good fake news sites I can point you to.

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

>>> Per capita income taxes in cites are a MULTIPLE higher than outside of cities!

Ok, you seem to be a little confused about what I am saying, so I will clarify it in a more simple way for your particular level of comprehension. Bear with me as I describe the difference between averages and medians, which you may have to do some further research on.

### AVERAGE) We sum all income taxes in a county, and divide it by the working age population.

### MEDIAN) We list all working age peoples in order from lowest to highest by their federal tax paid, and then we choose the man-in-the-middle, (excluding the top 10% and top 1%, because financialized parasites live in urban penthouse apartments). I think you will find the average and median federal taxes per capita in urban areas to have a much greater diversion to each other than rural areas … no? Different income and tax bell curves in rural vs urban, no? Some would say suburban areas of large Democrat strong-hold cities didn’t vote the same way as, perhaps, the cafe latte strip??? Just a thought, maybe there is a reason for this other than them all being ‘racist’ .. maybe it has something to do with MEDIAN’S? This has nothing to do with me hating urbanites – of which I was one – but I do very much dislike their MEDIAN lack of situational awareness in a globalized world where national macro-economics is a non-existent concern. I would say the 1% is quite aware, which is why they are still in the 1%, but the hoard of ill informed urbanites is like a zombie apocalypse.

If a slave state plantation had 300 residents, all working for $2 per day except the lord who was earning $200k per day, the average wage would be $669/day, meaning that the majority of the people in this plantation must be sipping Pina colada’s right? The median wage is $2/day. Well, in the modern neo-liberal world of port-city trade deficit generating parasite centers, all those plantation lords (90%+ of them … we’ll cal it the ‘bonus’ crowd) mostly have residences in said parasite cities. I would also hazard a guess that the majority of their income tax is offset in offshore structures (or Delaware and Nevada), cycled back into the US using real-estate investment and speculation loopholes which are drastically raising the price of the median dwelling across the continent in both urban and rural areas, even though median wages have been falling. I’m no Marxist, but I think this is called a Rentier Economy? (if we consider largely off-shored entities to be ‘foreign’ rather than domestic, regardless of US citizenship).

You see how medians are more relevant to the overall political opinions of a democratic society? Facts, I know, are a little bit hard to swallow when they don’t fit preconceived ideologies.

So … the problem is not ‘facts’, is it? The problem is the ability for the average urban dweller to get past averages, and into macro-economics which take into account the urbanrural economic synergy which SHOULD exist in a healthy superpower which was given such resource blessings across the most fertile and livable continent on planet earth. 95% of US Geography seems to have a problem with their particular resource management (human and material -> potential; pre-1970’s data points before trade deficits give an idea of the potential).

And let’s not get into how many government workers live in urban counties compared to rural counties, because last time I checked, government workers were PAID from Federal tax revenues, whereas the average farmer and factory worker is creating new revenue. We can take essential services like police and fire services out because they are required, but the majority of these government workers who are apparently generating ‘federal taxes’ whilst being paid directly from federal taxes, comprise of bureaucratic bloat; such as the 10 counties surrounding D.C., with the highest MEDIAN wage in the entire US … look … it … up … facts are facts … but I guess it depends on how you interpret facts and whether you can be bothered removing blinkers and getting into the harder statistical analysis of Medians versus Averages – though both are required to analyze *income inequality* – and what has been going on with port-city trade dynamics have more to do with this than most people are aware; though Trump is aware, and he’s been talking about it for three deacdes consistently, whereas the RINO’s have been lacing their wallets like the Democrats.

… ie, Not only higher, but the MEDIAN has been increasing rather than falling, as it has been in mostly the more rural areas which voted for Trump, including the rust belt which has been swinging red. Is DC a black hole that is sucking in all the wealth around it? What does DC produce? Oh, yeah, lobbyists and government paper pushers paid out of everyone else’s Federal taxes, and this area votes 85%-95% Democrat … I see a correlation here. What do we call a nation that has a higher percentage of its GDP generated from government activity? I believe it is Socialist, and traveling towards Fascism/Communism, which are both the same to the MEDIAN pleb with a boot in their face. The ideology of the boot wearer isn’t really that important to the guy being stomped.

HINT: Medians are a better way of determining *income inequality*, and last time I checked, they are better for determining VOTING DYNAMICS, which seem to be 1 VOTE per PERSON (remember our plantation example above where the median wage was $2 and not $669? … just saying). But, of course, the Electoral College provides a State based geographical check and balance, which prevents NY, CA, and IL, from determining the destiny of the entire nation … phew! But the swing is quite obvious from 2008->2012->2016 … might have something to do with phony Hope and Change and worsening income inequality.

It’s funny how the Chinese are buying up all the port operations in the US. Who would have thought that full Chinese container ships docking in these cities and returning empty would have the effect of allowing foreigners to carve out the heartland of industrial America using cafe latte sipping beta-males and 4th wave feminist crazed blue and red sprayed hair sirens on the east and west coast as surrogates? (also known as the reason I moved to a rural area to be around sane people).

Albert Ruiz, please stop flying over the continent, and talk to people who live in the heartland … maybe also read a little bit deeper than averages when consuming statistics.

Albert Ruiz

Why do you assume I have a problem with rural America? I don’t. My problem is with these kind of ignorant insults, which you seem to be defending.

“It is very simple to see why the biggest cities in the most elitist and leftist states received the most Democrat votes. They are stuffed with the most poor people that always vote for more of what they can get for nothing from the rest of us (through the corrupt bureaucracy called the federal government). ”

Why not take a moment to look up the stats going off on a patronizing rant about mean vs median?

Yes, we city folk are just a bunch of socialist parasites sucking the tax dollars out of red states. Hate on my friend.

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

Why on earth do I have to answer for the superficial response of another commentator (CommentorinChief) ??? You will notice that my replies were quite thorough, and had nothing to do with such an assessment. Do you need to build a strawman in order to avoid actually considering an argument about Averages and Medians – which I noticed you clearly avoided in substance, once again quoting some averages. Your arguments are just as superficial as the comment/s of CommentorinChief who you quoted in order to attack my own position. You will notice that I started to get patronizing when you first posted a highly patronizing reply to one of my comments.

What was the Median in NYCounty? Any ideas? Don’t expect government data to report medians though, but a quick look at income bell curves and how they have progressed in the last four decades, will speak volumes.

Who cares if an asset stripper in NYCounty earned $1Billion in any particular year and bumped up the average ‘tax burden’ in that particular county, when the assets he/she was stripping were domestic businesses chopped up and sold overseas because the domestic had to comply with all the regulations and labor laws, whereas the foreign and TNC daisychain with an offshored profit center gave back how much in taxes once sold off?

Where exactly was/is the lions share of MBS and CDO packaging churn banked and thus the personal tax paid even though all the mortgages were from the other 99% of the US? … over speculating and driving up the price for shelter on the average Joe? Could it be NYCounty? Any idea then why the *average* ‘tax burden’ of NYCounty should at all be part of any argument about why, across the entire western world, the rural areas are revolting against urban areas, and mostly the large port-cities and financial centers where the TRADE DEFICITS OF DEVELOPED nations are generated?

Please explain why such analysis should be considered ‘hating on’ anyone, rather than a simple slapping of them around the face in order to wake them the hell up, to pop their bubbles, and to enlighten them on the merits of looking slightly deeper than the first layer of statistical veneer in their arrogant, self righteous, existential pomposity … and once again, I, myself, was born, raised, lived most of my life in a big city, and decided one day to look outside of that very small, and cramped, little box, and to analyze macro-economic trends based on the economic POTENTIAL that existed before globalization. This is where the *division* of the western world is coming from, clearly: URBANRURAL macro-economics in developed countries being asset stripped by offshore parasites … WAKE UP!!!

Albert Ruiz

> Please explain why such analysis should be considered ‘hating on’ anyone

Let’s start with the fact you can’t seem to talk about cities without including a bunch of ridiculous stereotypes: blue haired, latte-sipping, pencil pushing, pompous parasites. You lived in a city once so it’s ok to generalize 150 million people you don’t know.

As for the analysis, just look how one-sided your arguments are, the surest sign of intellectual dishonesty. An intellectually honest person may be critical of cities, but they would at least acknowledge glaring facts, that cities are funding the federal government, instead of reaching for roundabout, theoretical explanations of why the numbers actually support your views.

When the mean income tax in New York is 20x bigger than in rural areas, I don’t know why you’re talking about mean vs median, and why you don’t just look them up yourself before arguing about them. But they are in fact available from the IRS.

MEDIAN income tax in New York County: about $5,000
In rural America: $0

WSmith

Typical and completely hopeless. Liberals simply can’t or won’t learn. They went to college to have their minds completely shuttered from reasoned argument. Eyes Wide Open could not have broken down the statistics to an easier to understand lesson, yet it went well over the head of Allen Ruiz.

WSmith

It’s obvious you didn’t read the comment.

Albert Ruiz

It’s obvious you care more about supporting your “team” than about the actual issues

WSmith

Again Albert, borrow somebody’s thinking cap and read the comment.

Lurkis Maximus

Do you think NYC will be able to get out of debt without a bailout from the rest of America?

With a debt of over $100 Billion (and welfare / entitlement payouts of around $500 million a month), I don’t think so.

That is the stupidest point I have heard yet! They pay more because people have higher incomes there. Why? Because is it EXPENSIVE to live there. The highest paying jobs are in urban areas. They also pay some of the highest state and local taxes in the nation. What you fail to mention is that many people and companies are leaving these places for lower “state and local” tax areas such as Florida and Texas.

Your poverty stats are BS also. If you have a county with 1000 people and 10% are poor that is 100 people. If you have a county with 10,000,000 people a 1% poverty rate is 100,000 people! So who have the most poor people!!!

hoot13

Your a moron, who spent all your SS money without even passing a budget ? Can you say 20 trillion deficit, it’s your messiah and the Dem party who more than doubled this supposedly ( says Oblamer ) unpatriotic deficit of 9 trillion in just 7 plus years, yet somehow you blame the Rs. Again moron.

Mark Smith

What planet are you living on?
You state: “Well the corporations have kept your retirement…” Please go ahead and name ONE corporation that “keeps” your retirement.
You’re serious about making the statement that the Republican party is going to somehow ‘keep’ your Social security? What the hell are you ingesting???
It’s the Dems who want to tax you and spend your Social Security money…the Republicans want you to KEEP YOUR MONEY!!!
Where have you been? What part of the tax-and-spend Dem game versus fewer taxes/lower taxes keep your money Rep game did you fucking miss?
At the root of every single way to separate you from your money is a liberal/commie who’s invented a new trick!!!

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

> At the root of every single way to separate you from your money is a liberal/commie who’s invented a new trick!!

This time it’s a lying, unscrupulous billionaire that won’t disclose his financials, but somehow has people believing he’s the champion of the working class. Impressive trick!!!

WSmith

You just showed your true spots. What a difference 11 days make.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

You’re clearly an across-the-board partisan. And that’s cool. But if all your views are dictated by party allegiance, why engage in debate in the first place?

WSmith

I never tire of trying to enlighten the unenlightened. By across-the-board-partisan I take it you mean ‘grounded in reality’.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Ok, maybe I’m wrong. On what partisan issue do you agree with liberals?

It’s hardly “enlightening” to hear you repeat the party line on every single issue.

PatriotGal

Joseph, you do know that it was LBJ a demonazi who in 1968 was the FIRST to raid/rape the Social security fund of $2 TRILLION – yes, Joseph, TWO TRILLION DOLLARS, and that has continued by demonazis since then till and including OWEbama who has placed ILLEGALS/REFUGEES on social security benefits while not paying in one cent. So, before you rip the Repubs, look in your own backyard for those who ruined SS. Why is it that the demonazis can only find ways to cut SS but not welfare, food stamps, SNAP, etc., yet increase their own salaries, pensions as OWEbama just signed to increase former POTUS’ pensions 18% – who are ALL multimillionaires including OWEbama. Mind you, I am a No Party Affiliate – INDEPENDENT who only registered R to vote for Trump in our state’s closed primary, then again for him in the national election. I just love facts, Joseph. How about you research them.

1956cyndi

agree that is the MSM version, but REALITY is that back in 2012 Geitner admitted it will ALL dry up at the rates of spending it was at- and then they nearly doubled the number on wlefare. What Ryan was saying is that NOW is the time to more privatize, while those needing it that paid in can get their money back- and those that will never see any money can opt out of paying in

Imur Dadeo

excellent explanation….especially about that fact that very few rural Americans are racists, and are obviously not shooting their neighbors in the high percentages than their urban counterparts are. In addition, a large number of rural minorities voted for Trump because as they are reeling from stagant wages and higher insurance costs….. As James Carville said; “It’s the economy stupid.” …People voted with their pocketbooks.

As an example, in two rural Colorado counties where Hispanics constitute about half the population, they flipped from blue to red. Conejos County, which is 53.7 percent Hispanic, went for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016. So did Las Animas County, which is 42.6 percent Hispanic. Why the switch of voting trends to Republican candidates by rural people of color??….. Surveys show it was largely economic, where paychecks have been mostly flat in recent years, but cost of living such as for insurance are dramatically higher…… The results showed that citizens of all colors vote with their pocketbooks;…

Exactly. When they started calling it ‘Whitelash’, I don’t know how infuriated it made me when I realized from the exit polling that Romney had a higher percentage of the white vote of the US Voting Population running against Obama than Trump did … and that’s saying something. Obviously this election was mostly Clinton’s to lose rather than Trump’s to win, and they call Trump voters racists? Even when faced with a ruralurban dynamic that is appearing all over Europe at the exact same time … and they palm it off as not being an economic issue related to financialized urban service centers sucking the life energy out of the rural areas that feed them. Shameful. Have a good holiday season Imur 😛

Imur Dadeo

10-4….. have a great holiday EWO!

Mark Smith

I lived in Southern California for my first 57 years; I’m a 3rd generation native.
Yes, I’ll live another 57. That’s a year, twice, for every one of Obango’s 57 states…but I digress…)
I moved to Nebraska almost 6 years ago. I went from sunshine and the fucked up clueless voters in oblivion to snowy, icy winters and hot, humid summers and people who are flat-out wonderful. I couldn’t be happier.
It’s the people that are important; the people make the difference in whether a place is a good place to live in or not.
The people of Nebraska, and many of the Red States, voted over 75% Trump to 25% Hiliar. Let that soak in…let in soak in…75%…or more! Now that’s a POPULAR vote! Trump didn’t just beat Hiliar, he fucking crushed her!!!
We out here in fly-over country are all done with you liberals. We’re done with political correctness, we’re done being told that only you liberal freaks know what is right, or what is good, or what we should eat, or what car to drive, or what fuel to burn, or how to shit or how to think. You arrogant self-centered idiots need to figure out what Life on Earth is all about. Fast.
It is you liberals who are the very folks that you despise. You’re the bigots, you’re the racists, you’re intolerant, you’re not inclusive, you’re the haters, and you’re the ignorant among us. Basically, you suck, because LIBERALS ARE THE PROBLEM!
Get rid of liberals, and the problems in America would all be solved.

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

>>>people who are flat-out wonderful. I couldn’t be happier.
Looks like you made the right choice. I’m a Christian Conservative, so I agree with you … just in case you misunderstood the point I was making about the ruralurban economic relationship that urban liberals have been urinating all over whist circle-jerking each other in their echo chambers. Looks like the bubble burst on Nov 8/9th and the liberal media are still doubling down on the same old pathetic failed propaganda … they’re flogging a dead horse that died almost 6 weeks ago now, and I don’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry at them.

WSmith

Laugh!

WSmith

Well, come on now, let’s be honest. Only 95% of the country’s problems would be solved. But I do agree that intolerance and bigotry is almost entirely owned by liberal progressives. I’m speaking of the mean, destroy your life, physical harm kind of intolerance and racism. Not an errant word or phrase like “the most qualified person should get the job”. Not a Christian owned bake shop that doesn’t wish to cater a gay wedding. I am speaking of that gay couple that set out to destroy the lives and business of people who simply declined to provide a service. I’m speaking of progressives who ‘target’ people by ideology and make false claims to attack them. The kind of people who try to get you fired at work because they don’t like your politics. In my experience every last one has been a liberal Democrat or some other version of Marxist.

PatriotGal

Mark, totally agree – it’s the people. We moved from the suburbs of NYC on LI – our community was called the bedroom of NYC and it was a nice community. Anyhow, we moved to FL – southwest FL (look at the map to see how RED we went for TRUMP!), and the people are fabulous!! It’s “please, thank you, see you again” when you don’t even know them. Doors are held and if by chance not, they apologize immediately for closing the door. FL’s not perfect! But it beats the nastiness, bitterness rampant in NYC and no state income tax!! When snowbirds travel here from the north (they’re folks who live here during the winter and go north for the summer) – most carry that bitterness down with them, but by the time they leave we have them smiling and happy again – but their driving is still in the pits – LOL!). When “unpleasant” things happen in parking lots first thing we look at is the tags on the car – out-of-state explains the entire issue. Of course, some of those who hold FL tags have moved here permanently from elsewhere and unfortunately have retained their poor driving ways, but the rest of us outnumber them. Be happy in Nebraska and enjoy the wonderful people there, Mark. Blessings ~ #MAGA

Benito Camela

You’re an idiot. Making a comment like “Trump crushed her” right underneath a bunch of maps that demonstrate the he only won in low population and rural areas, but otherwise was stomped on the national level. It’s like when they show that map and Wyoming is all red. Interesting, because there are fewer people in Wyoming than in Austin, TX and most of the state is uninhabited. Yah, in those areas Trump (and anyone with an R after their name) will “crush” the Democrat – tell us something we don’t know, moron.

Mark Smith

You’re the idiot, pendejo. Apparently, you’re colorblind too, and can’t see the whooping that the Dems took.
What you don’t know, moron, is how to comprehend and communicate effectively.
“…there are fewer people in Wyoming than in Austin, TX and most of the state is uninhabited.” That’s you’re problem right there. You think become you live in a population center, you’re fucking important and the rest of us don’t matter. Interestingly enough, our Founding Fathers understood the concept that a lot of people in a few areas could control the vote, and the few people in lots of areas wouldn’t have a voice at the polls. That’s why they set us up as a republic instead of a democracy, so everybody got a voice in government.
Trump crushed her in the electoral college. And that’s where it matters, because the popular vote doesn’t count. Tough shit for the losers. Crybabies. Did we go ape-shit and flip out when the worst President in the history of our country was elected, courtesy of a crooked media and uninformed voters? No, we waited for him to show the country how bad socialism is, and knew that when people woke up, they’d vote the Dims out. It worked great, and Queen Hiliar never will get her crown.
So again, just so maybe it’ll soak in the second time:
You arrogant self-centered idiots need to figure out what Life on Earth is all about. Fast.
It is you liberals who are the very folks that you despise. You’re the bigots, you’re the racists, you’re intolerant, you’re not inclusive, you’re the haters, and you’re the ignorant among us. Basically, you suck, because LIBERALS ARE THE PROBLEM!

johnmoser

” they chose to focus on their own identity politics, of race, religion, and lifestyle.” Jesus Christ, your lack of self-awareness and rank hypocrisy is astounding.

Sam

Wow, dude, you really have some anger issues to work through. Those good ole rural folks built this country and we don’t care to give it away through non-assimilating immigrants who move here and want the US to change to fit them. And no, the majority of the country does agree with the good ole folks, unfortunately their votes have been purchased through a “vote for me and I’ll give you more free stuff” system. Peel back the free stuff and vote along philosophical lines and your candidate might pull in 20% of the popular vote.

Albert Ruiz

>”we don’t care to give it away through non-assimilating immigrants”

What do you have against the Constitution, the principals of religious freedom and freedom of expression? Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but I still think we should follow them.

WSmith

When my ancestors came to America there were no social programs they could tap into at taxpayer expense. In those days 40% of immigrants returned to their country’s of origin because they couldn’t make it here. Immigrants in those days came to America because they wanted to become Americans and not just set up transplanted versions of their home country’s. 42.3 million foreign nationals are legally living in the United States today. The highest percentage since the founding of the country. If you were really old fashioned you would know that immigration is Constitutionally the responsibility of congress and not the executive branch. You would also know that ‘freedom of religion’ was about Christians and the citizens at large being protected from a machination like ‘The Church of England’ which is what the founders were speaking of…. The founders also considered Islam a barbaric 7th century ideology anathema to American principles (Barbary War). It still is.

Albert Ruiz

Where in the Constitution does it say Islam doesn’t qualify for religious freedom?

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

We don’t get to pick and choose who the Constitution applies to

WSmith

I can’t believe you confessed to such ignorance. Are you 12 and that’s a picture of your daddy? The U.S. Constitution applies to it’s citizens, federal and state governments. It is not the governing charter of Mexico or Honduras or Japan or any other nation. They all have their own charters.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Nope. The Bill of Rights applies to *everyone* in the US, not just citizens.

WSmith

Get rid of the ‘Fake News’ at ABC, NBC, CBS, their spoiled brat cable siblings and CNN and the Democrats wouldn’t top 15%. I wised up when Jimmy Carter stated he would build the B-1 Bomber while speaking to Boeing workers at the plant in Washington state then promised to cancel the same program at his next stop in Madison, Wisconsin. I was a voracious reader and news junky and ran across the articles in different newspapers. The nightly and Sunday news show’s never questioned the Democrats dishonesty. So way before the internet I was wise to media bias and I could not be happier that so many others are finally wising up.

JACK WILLIAMS

shut up libterd

Mark Belk

We still got the food, energy, the guns, God and the constitution. We can make it without you, you can’t survive without u and if you think you can try it for a while without food and energy. Even Jefferson said we would be cursed if we got piled on top of each other in large cities like they were in Europe.

MSSpahr

This is exactly the kind of elitism that lost the election for Hillary Clinton. Time to own it.

Sam Hain

Gee thanks so much for consuming!
What a stupid argument.

Bob da Tank

Just wait until about 2024 when Texas flips from solid GOP to solid non GOP. Then the maps will be irrelevant. Not fair that 17% of the people in the US elect half the Senate. Given that all states have 2 senators and at least 1 representative the goo people of Montana have a weighted vote about 35 times that of voters in California

disqus_snDya9Ohzz

No. No. No. It IS fair. That is LITERALLY the point of the Senate. The Senate is there so that all states, regardless of population, have a loud voice in at least half the legislature. That Rhode Island has as much a say as California in the Senate is IMPORTANT to the way our country operates. If you want representation based on population, look across the hall to the House of Representatives.

Bob da Tank

Representation based on population? You’re kidding me… The vast majority of House districts are drawn by the state legislatures after a census. The 2010 elections ushered in the so-called Tea Party and the result was dozens of states where House districts (and state representative and senate districts as well) were gerrymandered so as to cut down on representation,(see e.g., North Carolina) not to mention the voter suppression efforts put in place by those state legislators (again see North Carolina). “The people have spoken-The bastards”-Dick Tuck

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

I believe you are splitting hairs my friend. Yes, House districts can be gerrymandered, but as per state Rep quotas by overall population% for the nation, they are apportioned for the pop-vote, rather than for reasons of states rights as per the Senate is. The USA is a damn Democratic Republic, not a Pure Democracy … a Pure Democracy would be a damn tyranny, and even Jefferson and Madison wrote much about this fact.

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

Listen, when you actually list all of the states in order by the average population per electoral vote, and then you group them by Democrat of Republican win based on the 2016 result, then work out the average pop/electoral vote for the two groups, you get the following;
DEMOCRAT: 590,000 people / Electoral vote
REPUBLICAN: 579,000 people / Electoral vote
… that is just a 1.8% advantage to the Republicans based on the way the states currently fall. And as for the damn half the Senate being elected by 17% of the nation, THIS IS EXACTLY WHY IT IS CALLED A REPUBLIC !!! The RuralUrban synergy I was talking about is VERY important to the stability of the US economy. you do realize that majority of the TRADE DEFICIT of the United States is generated in large Port Cities and their Service centers don’t you? In 1970, only 4% of the US GDP was attached to foreign trade. As the so called ‘free trade’ deals, advocated mostly by the service center cities have carved out the economies of rural america (visible in the rust belt), the cities have literally been living off of the largess of Treasury Bond and Municipal Debt sold to overseas actors. The cities have literally become debt centers selling out the rest of the continental US.

So, yes, 17% of the country SHOULD elect half the Senate, and once Trump builds the wall, perhaps Texas can buy a decade extra in GOP territory: Check the election map … methinks that the latino vote is rather important to the Democrats. All they have been doing is importing voters to break up the southern border states.

Bob da Tank

OK so that’s where the millions of illegal votes referred to by Mr. Trump come from? Are you suggesting that all of the illegal aliens are simply lining up to vote? There is ZERO credibility to that position. I’m a registered Republican; Trump is no Republican. He’s an outsider who hijacked the GOP (Just as Sanders, a Socialist ran as a Democrat, but that’s another story). If the premise of your position is that illegal aliens are voting by the millions, then I believe this little discussion is over. Go ahead Build the wall, throw billions down the toilet. Make Mexico pay, MAGA. I’m outta here.

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

>>>Are you suggesting that all of the illegal aliens are simply lining up to vote?
No … that inner-city Democratic Party machines and ‘activist’ groups such as ‘Democracy Partners’ (Soros), organize for illegals to vote in states where ID is not required, or hook illegals up with the ID of dead people to vote in troves in heavy urban areas controlled by DNC operatives. Just watch the Project Veritas videos, or the mouth of the ex-NYC elections commissioner, to understand that the national POPULAR VOTE is very easy to be rigged … so God bless the Electoral College system. Just look at the election map of southern Texas in the latino areas, and the way latinos were voting … it’s not too hard to see why the Dems want to keep Texas flooded with illegals and to get them amnesty. If Texas was to turn blue, the Electoral College system would also be conquered.

Niteangel

Left propaganda sure worked well on you Bob, you actually believed that Hillary wanted to open the borders and just let everyone in. Hillary too wanted to “build a wall”, she calls it “a physical barrier”, and said this quite a few times through the years. She also voted for Secure Fence Act of 2006.

CFHinLA

Umm, by design?

WSmith

Not fair? How is it that 12 states ruling over the other 38 could be fair? Trump won 3,084 of 3,141 counties nation wide. That is a landslide. America was founded as a Republic and not a pure Democracy.

Sara Engelbert

Excellent explanation!

p4045100363

Beautiful, man, just beautiful.

Imur Dadeo

…and more importantly, if we do away with the electoral college and it’s recognition of geographic nuances (ie no more 2 Senators per state), we would effectively neuter the states, which centrists socialists and federalists would obviously love.. All of America would become serfs and slaves to the 12 largest states which by themselves would hold the plurality… We would then be just one step away from revolt and eventually anarchy as has happened in other nations who have tried the switch to a pure popular vote system. In addition, a close vote like the past view presidential elections, would automatically demand a re-count of the entire nation, creating huge delays & lawsuits, and costing hundred$ of million$.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

I’m very much a libertarian, and believe in a strict reading of the constitution. But I don’t follow your arguments.

> We would then be just one step away from revolt and eventually anarchy as has happened in other nations who have tried the switch to a pure popular vote

Where are you referring to? Almost every other country in the world elects their head of government with a popular vote.

> the 12 largest states which by themselves would hold the plurality

What do you mean they would hold the plurality?

Imur Dadeo

Exactly Max, most of the world exhibits constant internal strife & widespread violence during elections, especially those nations that have regional factions that are not well represented by their election process. We find those gov’ts become more like a police state to hold the nation in check against their will during elections; all the way from most nations in the Middle Eastern, and also in Russia, China, Venezuela, most African Nations, and even Cuba uses police force to suppress civilian unrest during elections. — Nations with electoral college elections such as Burundi, Estonia, France, Hong Kong USA, etc have never had widespread killings during elections since adopting electoral colleges. Nations like Argentina & Brazil that switched away from the electoral college to direct popular vote had huge deadly civil unrest in the late 1800s, and still battle with killings during elections in several regions of those countries. _____

Also, if we want to discuss campaign reform, imagine the issue of trying to minimize influence peddling to a minimum if the US popular vote could be largely determined by winning the 12 largest states, which hold as many registered voters as the rest of the nation combined. We are a large geographic nation with wide regional differences, and doing away with the equal vote of 2 US senators per state would largely neuter states, creating a dangerous centralized power base in the capital with the 12 largest states largely running the show; —this has never been a good thing for citizens in nations that use that election system. Libertarians like Gary Johnson, Rand Paul & others have expressed how dangerous it would be to do away with the electoral college which is recognized compensate for regional differences, while giving a nod to changes in population counts.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Developed countries tend to have peaceful, fair elections. Undeveloped countries do not. No connection with electoral college.

The USSR was a “developed” country. Compare a map of it 30 years ago to a map of the Russian Federation today. The electoral college and disproportionate respresentation of a large number of small population states in the Senate goes a long way to mitigate that sort of balkanization here by insuring that all parts of the country have a fair say in the political process. Take it away and you might be surprised at what a map of the USA looks like 30 years from now.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

The problem with Soviet elections wasn’t proportional representation. It was that only one candidate appeared on the ballot.

Hibernia86

Disproportionate representation should do more to cause the more populated states to break from the union because they realize that the system is rigged against them. If we go by the popular vote, then everyone has equal say and it can be said to be a fair election. Any election where the power of the vote is disproportionate to the population is by definition undemocratic.

Charles S.

You just hit the nail on the head. We are not and never have been a democracy. We are and were set up as a representative republic. And the founders had the wisdom and foresight to set up a system that gave every part of the country at least a little influence in how the country was run. Just look at Wyoming with its measly half a million population. Do you think the nearly 40 million people in California would know or even care what the needs and wants of the people in Wyoming are? California has 65 times the population of Wyoming. Just Los Angeles has nearly 20 times the population of Wyoming. What national politician would care about Wyoming or ever go there? Just not enough votes to worry about. Talk about a red headed stepchild! Do you think on a national basis anything would ever be done for Wyoming? Without the two senators per state regardless of population and the electoral college they would probably still be having to drive on dirt roads. If you go by population, California would have 65 times the influence of Wyoming. Los Angeles alone would have nearly twenty times the influence of Wyoming. Even with the electoral college, the 3 electoral votes of Wyoming pale in comparison to the 55 of California. But at least the electoral college cuts California’s influence down to 18 times Wyoming’s. In a close election like we just had, those 3 electoral votes could swing an election. They wouldn’t have this time but they could. So with their two senators and three electoral votes, the politicians have to pay a little attention to Wyoming.

if you remove all illegals and semi-illegals from those “most populous states”, their population numbers will dwindle and voting majority will disappear.

Kd Grayson

Nope a popular vote ignores each states popular vote, how can you be popular if only 1 state is your but 50 million live there , especially if the state welcomes illegals! nobodysd vote will count unless you are in california.

Kd Grayson

We have 50 states not 1

Kd Grayson

The electoral college is simply each states popular vote, its the popular vote of the entire country not just one state with 50 million illegals voting, it will be easy to cheat, as it is now the cheating in california only gave a popular vote it still cant help to cheat this way. cheating must be done across the country to work now.

Ken Schupp

What did you not understand? I thought he explained it thouroughly.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

These were my questions

> We would then be just one step away from revolt and eventually anarchy as has happened in other nations who have tried the switch to a pure popular vote

Where are you referring to? Almost every other country in the world elects their head of government with a popular vote.

> the 12 largest states which by themselves would hold the plurality

What do you mean they would hold the plurality?

Sam Hain

Imagine the E.U as the U.S. Now make it a popular vote for the E.U governance and you’d see many countries ignored by the ruling class while others had dominance. The E.U would crumble in a heartbeat. Thank you very much.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

That exactly how it works now

DBS5347

No it isn’t. Member nations in the EU have very broad authority over their own affairs at the direction of their respective charters, constitutions, or whatever other founding document is relevant and domestically elected officials. The control of the EU over member nations is considerably less than the control of the federal government over US states. If there was an attempt to merge EU member nation states into a single EU nation state with a single head of state presiding over all of them there would be massive resistance. Christ subjects of the UK weren’t even willing to remain part of the EU under the limited control and direction it has now and voted to ‘secede’.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Yes, you are right. I has misinterpreted EU to mean individual EU countries, not the EU as a single body. I stand corrected.

Hibernia86

Yet within nations like France, their leaders are chosen by popular vote and it doesn’t cause France to break into many countries. Popular vote works just fine as long as people view themselves as a nation. No one complains when the Governors of the states are chosen by popular vote, but when Trump wins only because of the Electoral Vote, suddenly the Trump supporters hate the popular vote system. If Hillary had won the Electoral College while Trump had won the popular vote, the Trump supporters would have been first in line to chuck out the Electoral College.

AnastasiaB21

you are comparing a finger to a penis. France is mostly racially and socially homogenous, with slight difference between people living in rural areas and in several big cities. US is nowhere near that, and what works for France will not work for US.

Hibernia86

If America can learn to work together even given our ethnic and religious differences, why can’t France or any other country? I think that people too often make the assumption that since something is tradition that it must always be that way. Humans are not naturally bigoted and Europeans are just as capable of living next to someone of a different race or religion as people in the US are.

HarveyMushman

Yes Europeans are just as capable and it isn’t working very well there either…

Sue Jones

Disgusting but accurate.

jaeleth

It doesn´t works for France… not any longer, at least… France is becoming a cesspool of immigration, as well as Germany…

Kd Grayson

Popular vote = across the country, not isolated pockets of support, California, actually LA county could decide every election why bother voting in most states then., if you are popular due to one state thats not popular.

jaeleth

Do not forget France (or Germany) are only slightly bigger than Texas… Compare US with EU not US with Geramny of France. And, speaking of France and Germany, they´re on their way to the mudpit with their immigration policy (and dragging all of europe with them…)

Steve Paesani

That is as disingenous and deceitfull as it gets. Facts are when the democrats won the previous 2 elections the republicans did not tear away at the electoral process. When the republicans won with the same electoral process the democrats did. Fact.

AnastasiaB21

have you followed the news recently? EU states might still have some authority left, but most of the decisions are made by the heaviest economy of the union- Germany, and it effectively dictates its will to all other countries.

jaeleth

Yes, that´s why Europe is becoming a shithole as a whole… And smaller states accept this because they are been given Money in return. Germany is making everyone debt dependente from them, so they can control them, but not all, UK has already jumped ship…

Hibernia86

The governors in every state are elected by the popular vote, yet you never see states crumbling because of it. If the Electoral College had never existed, people would think it was a crazy undemocratic idea. The only reason most people who support the Electoral College now are doing so is because it helped their candidate win. It is partisanship, not logic, which decides their opinions.

Joel0903

I just want to point out that the EC IS an un-democratic idea. It was created as such – on purpose.

Sue Jones

Exactly, it’s a FEDERALIST idea. And it’s one of the most critical differences between the US and other democracies. God Bless our brilliant founding Fathers.

Justin Craft

“The only reason most people who support the Electoral College now are doing so is because it helped their candidate win.”
Nah, it’s because we’ve been doing it for the past 241 years. It’s worked just fine so far.

Yenski

Except for all of the times it didn’t.

Levi Moeller

it works every time, we always get a clear winner.

HarveyMushman

Depends on your definition of crumbling….California for example is half way there….I live there, so I know all too well…

Sue Jones

California, I’m in Illinois. I feel your pain. #FireHerrMadigan.

Sue Jones

I live in Illinois. This might just be the state to experience the collapse to which you refer. Every citizen outside of the immediate Chicago area is considered of less value than those within the city. Yet it is our funding which keeps Cook county afloat. Liberal politicians pass all kinds of expensive, senseless laws, while the rest of us make up the difference. You have no idea how much “Downstate Illinois” would like to sever it’s servitude to Chicago. Many of us have suggested that Chicago would be a wonderful 51st state. #FireHeirMadigan.

Sue Jones

Thats exactly why it is crumbling. #Brexit.

jaeleth

Correct, that´s one of the fewest things that works as it should in EU, all the rest, of course, doesn´t… But that would be another story…

DBS5347

“Max Galka
”

Mod

Ken Schupp

•10 days ago
These were my questions

> We would then be just one step
away from revolt and eventually anarchy as has happened in other nations
who have tried the switch to a pure popular vote”

I don’t know what countries he’s referring to and agree with your assessment regarding most countries using the popular vote. That said the US only exists today because it’s population was unsatisfied with being governed, completely lawfully at the time, by England and overthrew it with violent armed force in the form of sustained armed insurrection. So the “anarchy” he speaks of is not unprecedented here.

” the 12 largest states which by themselves would hold the plurality

What do you mean they would hold the plurality?”

I think he means a majority of registered voters.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Thanks for the clarification. My thoughts…

> That said the US only exists today because it’s population was unsatisfied with being governed, completely lawfully at the time, by England and overthrew it with violent armed force in the form of sustained armed insurrection. So the “anarchy” he speaks of is not unprecedented here.

Yes, I agree with this, in the abstract. I just don’t understand how it would result from a popular vote. Personally, I’m in favor of greater states rights, more like they were originally envisioned (the power to form alliances, declare war, and essentially all the powers of sovereign nation states). But for better or worse, all the power is now at the federal level, just like it is in most other countries. That being the case, It seems arbitrary that the vote of certain people is worth 3x that of other people by virtue of where they happen to live at the moment.

> “Then all of America would become serfs and slaves to the 12 largest states which by themselves would hold the plurality.” I think he means a majority of registered voters.

In other words “plurality” = “majority.”

As for becoming “serfs and slaves,” that argument is at odds with history. Small states are on the winning side of the popular vote just as often as big states. But if it were true, by the same argument those 12 states (the majority) are currently serfs and slaves to the other 38 (the minority), which wouldn’t exactly be fair either.

Kd Grayson

NO NO NO
A plurality vote describes the circumstance when a candidate polls more votes than any other, but does not receive a majority..

Russ in Colorado

Where to begin…Here’s some additional thoughts on your questions.
*Most of the world seems to want to immigrate to the US. Evidently there is something about our dirt, air, water that’s better than their homeland or perhaps it’s the fact that the popular vote of the city based collectivists doesn’t always prevail over the more independent rural citizens.
*Consider the definition of plurality, “the number of votes cast for a candidate who receives more than any other but does not receive an absolute majority.” We have seen progressives try to push this form of vote. In a popular vote, it would be possible for all the candidates in the primary to instead be voted on by the population. One might have more votes than any other but not have a majority. That’s pretty simple to see.
Regarding “importance” of certain land areas. The fact is it takes more land to grow our food than it does to eat it. Consequently, rural families don’t easily congregate in a dense population. Their sparsity on the land means they may be affected by different circumstances from their neighbor five miles away. In the same distance in the city, that might constitute hundreds or thousands of voters all with the same problem.
Take affordable housing for an example. Housing in the city is expensive because available land is scarce. The city folk vote to move the city boundary into the rural area. They can outvote the rural folk. Now they want the dirt road paved and made a four lane, they can outvote the rural folk. and they don’t want combines and balers taking space in their bike lanes. And on it goes but hey, the popular vote prevailed.
We could go on and on with examples. I’m sorry you cant see it. I used to live in the country. I have not moved more than three mile in 50 years in the same town. Their are now 85K voters where there was once 19K. Where did they come from? The big city 12 miles west of us where they can no longer afford to live. Now some of us can’t afford to live here because they have driven up the price of housing.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

> We have seen progressives try to push this form of vote. In a popular vote, it would be possible for all the candidates in the primary to instead be voted on by the population.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting a direct popular vote for the primaries. The RNC and DNC are private organizations and can run their primaries however they like.

> The big city 12 miles west of us where they can no longer afford to live. Now some of us can’t afford to live here because they have driven up the price of housing.

Gentrification is a tough one. It feels inherently unfair to see communities driven out of an area to be replaced by wealthier people. Though it would also be unfair to block people from buying a home on account of their net worth. That’s capitalism, and I don’t think it’s the government’s place to limit people’s freedom to make a private transaction.

Kd Grayson

Each state is decided by popular vote, every state must count, so the electoral college is simply the results of 50 elections and the most states win.

Chris G.

That’s not how that works at all. Since each state determines how to split or not split their electoral vote, in some states the electoral votes are split based on the popular vote and some states award the entirety of their electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote in the states. This is why some candidates can win an electoral vote but lose the popular vote by concentrating on states that award all of their electoral votes to a single candidate.

Kd Grayson

Nobody has ever won the Presidency by the “popular ” vote, whoever wins the most states wins.

YOU SAID,..
some states award the entirety of their electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote in the states.

REALITY IS,..
Only two states, Nebraska and Maine, do not follow the winner-takes-all rule.
REALITY IS, EVERY STATE IS DECIDED BY IT’S POPULAR VOTE.

IF WE WENT BY WHO RECEIVED THE MOST VOTES, CALIFORNIA WOULD DECIDE EVERY ELECTION.

CALIFORNIA HAS MORE PEOPLE THAN THE 10 LOWEST POPULATED STATES “COMBINED”!!!
CALIFORNIA ALSO ACTIVELY RECRUITS & ENABLES ILLEGAL ALIENS TO VOTE BY REGISTERING THEM WHEN THEY GET A DRIVERS LICENSE DUE TO THE MOTOR VOTER LAW..

IT IS RACIST TO ASSERT THAT ILLEGALS ARE TOO STUPID, FAT OR LAZY TO VOTE, OR ACT IN THEIR BEST INTEREST.
TO ASSERT THEY HAVE NO ID’S IS RACIST AND IGNORES THE TRUTH THAT MILLIONS OF ILLEGALS HAVE A CALIFORNIA DRIVERS LICENSE!

AND IT IGNORES THE FACT THAT CALIFORNIA HAS A $35 MILLION ENDOWMENT THAT FUNDS THE ” iVOTA! ” CAMPAIGN.
CALIFORNIA IS PLASTERED WITH iVOTA! BILLBOARDS, BUS STOP ADS, BUS ADS, TV ADS, T SHIRTS AND TEAMS OF PEOPLE THAT SEEK TO “POLITICIZE” ILLEGALS, ASSIST THEM IN REGISTERING FOR SCHOOL, DRIVERS LICENSE, SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS, TAX ID #’s
MEDICAL COVERAGE, WELFARE, FOOD STAMPS, GOOGLE iVOTA!.

TRUMP HAD ALMOST 2 MILLION MORE VOTES UNTIL CALIFORNIA’S LA COUNTY AND SAN DIEGO COUNTY WAS COUNTED.

NOT ONLY DID DEMOCRATS WIN CALIFORNIA, BUT 2 MILLION MORE VOTERS VOTED THAN WAS REQUIRED FOR LIBS TO WIN CALIFORNIA , THEY WERE OF NO HELP TO THE LIBS, NOW IF THEY HAD SPREAD OUT THE ILLEGALS ACROSS SEVERAL STATES THEN THE ILLEGAL VOTERS VOTES WOULD HAVE COUNTED, AS IT IS THEY GAVE HILLARY AN ALLEGED “POPULAR VOTE”
WHEN YOUR “POPULAR VOTE” IS DERIVED FROM 1 STATE OUT OF 50
HOW POPULAR ARE YOU ACROSS THE ENTIRE COUNTRY?
NOT VERY!
IF YOU WIN 32 STATES AND YOUR OPPONENT WINS 18 STATES ,IT IS IRRELEVANT IF THE 18 STATES HAD 1 MORE VOTE OR 1 MILLION MORE VOTES.

IF YOU WERE RUNNING TO WIN THE MOST PEOPLE YOU COULD CAMPAIGN IN JUST CAL AND NY , OR AS EVIDENCED JUST 18 STATES AND COMPLETELY IGNORE A MAJORITY (32) OF THE STATES.

THE MERE EXISTENCE OF CALIFORNIAS MOTOR VOTER LAW REGISTERING ILLEGALS WHILE GIVING THEM A CDL ALONE MAKES THE ALLEGED “POPULAR VOTE” A JOKE AND MAGNIFIES HOW PATHETIC TOUTING IT IS, IF NOT PART OF THE POPULACE , 50% THAT HAS A BELOW AVERAGE IQ, LIKE RECEIVING DEBATE QUESTIONS AND CHEATING WHILE BEING ARROGANT AS TO HOW MUCH YOU HAD PREPARED FOR THE DEBATE.
IF TRUMP HAD CHEATED ON THE DEBATES AS HILLARY DID, HIS “WITTY” RESPONSES WOULD HAVE LOST ANY WEIGHT AND IN FACT EVIDENCE HOW DEPRAVED AND MALADJUSTED SHE IS.

IMAGINE TRUMP SOLD PUTIN URANIUM , FOLLOWED BY A 1 TIME “DONATION” TO HIS “FOUNDATION” OF $145,000,000 THAT HIS FOUNDATION HAD NEVER ACCOUNTED FOR AND ALLEGEDLY HAD “LOST” TRACK OF IT’S EXISTENCE THUS IT’S REQUIREMENT TO BE DETAILED, ACCOUNTED FOR, IT TOOK THE DOGGED RESEARCH OF A TRUE JOURNALIST TO UNCOVER THE $145,000,000 “DONATION’S” LIMBO STATUS, WHICH THEY HAD TO REVISE THE TAX RETURN FOR THEIR SHAM FOUNDATION..
IMAGINE MELANIA WAS GIVING $500,000 SPEECHES TO RUSSIAN OLIGARCH’S, IMAGINE TRUMP BEING OVERHEARD ON AN OPEN MIKE, TELL VLAD AFTER THE ELECTION I CAN BE MORE FLEXIBLE.
OR TRUMP HAD A RESET BUTTON, THAT DIDN’T EVEN SAY RESET.

THE FACT THAT THE ALLEGED RUSSIAN MEDDLING WAS VIA FACEBOOK ADS IS MORONIC, PATHETIC TO THE POINT OF BEING COMICAL, NOT JUST THAT BUT TO MAINTAIN THAT PUTIN DUPED AMERICANS TO SWITCH THEIR VOTE WHICH RESULTED IN TRUMP WINNING IS SAYING THAT THE LIBERALS WHO WERE ANTI TRUMP BECAME PRO TRUMP AS A RESULT OF FACEBOOK ADS, ALLEGEDLY $200,000 WORTH ! IS EVIL RETARDED.

IT’S STUPID TO MAINTAIN PUTIN DUPED PRO TRUMP VOTERS TO VOTE FOR TRUMP, CLEARLY IF ANY VOTERS WERE DUPED TO CHANGE THEIR VOTE TO TRUMP ,IT WAS OBVIOUSLY A HILLARY VOTER, YOU CANT MAKE SOMEONE DO SOMETHING THEY WERE ALREADY DOING.

IT IS ALSO SAYING THAT TRUMP VOTERS WERE UNABLE TO BE DUPED DESPITE A BOMBARDMENT OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA, HOLLYWOOD, FAKE POLLS ALL DESIGNED TO “DUPE” US TO VOTE FOR HILLARY!!
WE WERE UN DETERRED IN OUR BELIEFS, WE WERE NOT “DUPED” AS THE LIBS ADMIT TO BEING AND BY JUST FACEBOOK ADS !!

MUELLER BEING APPOINTED BY ROSENSTEIN WHO RECOMMENDED IN WRITING TO FIRE COMEY PRIOR AND HAD SIGNED OFF ON THE FISA WARRANTS, NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT MUELLER IS HOPELESSLY CONFLICTED, THE MERE APPEARANCE OF A CONFLICT OF INTEREST IS TO BE AVOIDED, ANY 1ST MONTH LAW STUDENT KNOWS THIS.

Alex d

Someone could explain it 1000 times to this guy but he is not a libertarian. His premise is a lie from the start. I wouldn’t bother.

jimb82

No, most do not. At least not large nations comparable to the USA.

Nations with parliamentary systems elect their heads of government by electing members of parliament, who then negotiate to form a coalition of parties that will get behind one of them (i.e., “form a government”).

Many other nations do not have free and fair elections at all.

Hibernia86

But in Parliamentary systems, each member of Parliament is elected by districts that each have about the same number of people in them. The problem with the Electoral College is that it gives extra votes to small states that aren’t reflected in the population. You don’t have that problem in most Parliamentary systems because each district is given the voting power based on its population (and since all of the districts have about the same population, every district get one member of Parliament). Rural areas don’t get more members of Parliament than urban areas. The number they get is proportional to their population, the way it should be. The Electoral College does more to hurt national unity because the larger states see that their votes are not weighed the same as smaller states. The elections that are considered unfair are the ones where the popularly elected candidate wasn’t given the presidency. You don’t see the same level of anger when the popular vote winner gets the presidency.

There are a few outliers for self-contained areas that would not make sense to break up. Those aside (about 1% of the population), representation is far more uniform across constituencies than the Electoral College. More importantly, there is no inherent bias that favors rural over urban areas.

jimb82

Take the “few outliers” out of the EC and you get the same effect.

Furthermore, there are few countries on the scale of the United States (which is, after all, a federation of states), so it’s not really comparable. Most parliamentary democracies are more like states of the US. The US is more like the EU in scope. Is the European Commission equal in representation among voters? Why not? How about the Bundestag? Answer that and you have a much better understanding of the EC and what it means to be a federal system.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

In the U.S. there is a big % of the population at both extremes.

Partly agree on your point about comparing to the EU. The EU is a better comp in terms of size. Though the states of EU are each sovereign nations, like the US was when the Electoral College was conceived. If the US were still like that, I would be in favor of the Electoral College. Now that all the power is at the federal level, it makes a lot less sense.

A better comparison would be India. Their system is uniform, like the UK.

jimb82

Might make more sense to devolve power to the states than to make the US more unitary.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

I would be 100% in favor

Charles S.

You just hit on a lot of the problem. This country was not set up for all the power to be at the federal level. In fact the constitution clearly states that all power not expressly given to the federal government rests with the states. That is why it was set up as a representative republic instead of a democracy. Of course the federal government has grabbed and continues to grab more and more power without amending the constitution to allow it. You are right in that this country was formed from basically sovereign states. And those states did not want an overbearing all powerful federal government. Thus the electoral college and two senators per state. Thus giving even a small state population wise at least a little influence in the government. In the beginning those senators were not elected by the people. They were chosen by the each state’s government. Choosing senators by a vote of the people came later.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

From the Declaration of Independence: “…as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do”

Things have changed a lot since then. I would be in favor of giving the power back to the states. But the reality is that our system today is what it is. And I don’t think it’s compatible with the Electoral College.

Charles S.

Yes, things have changed a lot since then. And that is the reason that President Trump was elected. The people in most of the country do not like many of those changes. We are on a path to socialism and they do not want it. President Trump won 30 states to Hillary’s 20. That makes for a majority red country. But the county by county map is even more dramatic. President Trump won 2,623 counties to Hillary’s 489. That is almost 85 percent of the counties for President Trump and only a little over 15 percent for Hillary. That alone should tell the Democrats and the socialists something. The socialists are holed up in their socialist enclaves and don’t know or care what the rest of the countries wants and needs are. The three mega cities of Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago essentially guarantee those three states to the Democrats. Just those three states give the Democrats over 100 electoral votes or about 40 percent of the total needed to win. That is a big hurdle for any Republican to overcome to win the election. That is why the Republican has to win a lot more states to win the election. The electoral college did exactly what it was designed to do. The founders did not want a small piece of the country to end up ruling over and dictating to the whole country. And I don’t see why the electoral college is not compatible with our current system. It has elected us a president every four years for the last 200 including this election.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

> “And that is the reason that President Trump was elected. The people in most of the country do not like many of those changes.”

Agree with this. A large segment of the population has been ignored by our government for a long time and there is a lot to be angry about. The system is broken and we desperately need a change.

> “We are on a path to socialism and they do not want it.”

> “That is almost 85 percent of the counties for President Trump and only a little over 15 percent for Hillary. That alone should tell the Democrats and the socialists something.”

Now, these comments tell me you’re not being a straight shooter. Appreciate that you want to support your side, but when people see everything in black and white terms, it doesn’t make for constructive debate, so I’ll end it here. Have a good evening.

Paul Byvtary

Personally I’d be okay with a simple popular vote if those on welfare or those who work for government were not allowed to vote.

stumptowngreen

So you’d be ok with the popular vote as long as people you don’t like are denied the right to vote. Seems fair and democratic.

Paul Byvtary

No dumb dumb, the people you suggest I don’t like have a conflict of interest.

stumptowngreen

Lots of people besides those two groups have conflicts of interest.

Albert Ruiz

Everyone has a conflict of interest

BuckeyeBear

I think now is a perfect time for the left to be persuaded to reduce the centralized power of the federal government given the shear panic that resulted from this Presidential election. 1: Maybe we’d have less anxiety if we didn’t think the President was going to impact our lives as drastically as we seem to believe currently. 2.If Vermont and California want to go full Communist (as close as legally possible), then they can – it’ll be their chance to prove or disprove its viability. 3. We’ll all focus more on our local and state communities, improving our relationships in them, and worrying less about controlling the lives of others in other states.
I’m exaggerating a little to poke the left, but you get the idea.

Will Baumann

Much of what you write here and elsewhere is correct. However, to nit pick, the constitution does NOT clearly sate that all power not EXPRESSLY given to the federal government rests with the states. It does state that powers not delegated to the federal government rest with the states or the people.

They tried the articles of confederation (which used the concept of expressly given powers as you describe), it didn’t work, so they changed things.

The Tenth Amendment is similar to an earlier provision of the Articles of Confederation:

Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.

After the Constitution was ratified, South Carolina Representative Thomas Tudor Tucker and Massachusetts Representative Elbridge Gerry separately proposed similar amendments limiting the federal government to powers “expressly” delegated, which would have denied implied powers. James Madison opposed the amendments, stating that “it was impossible to confine a Government to the exercise of express powers; there must necessarily be admitted powers by implication, unless the Constitution descended to recount every minutia.” When a vote on this version of the amendment with “expressly delegated” was defeated, Connecticut Representative Roger Sherman drafted the Tenth Amendment in its ratified form, omitting “expressly.” Sherman’s language allowed for an expansive reading of the powers implied by the Necessary and Proper Clause.

Doc

Max the air that you make in logic is in the size of our country and the extreme differences from region to region. Most countries that elected by popular vote are much smaller and much more homogeneous in race and religion and culture or heritage.

jaeleth

…And almost every other country in the world is misrepresented. I live in one of those, it is a nice country but the politicians only care about the 2 big cities and I don´t live in one (neither I would like) I know!!!!

Keep it as it is USA, don’t be fooled by those who want to turn na exceptional American into a commonplace shithole… Yes, that´s the right word to use.

It is not YOU that should want to become like us, it is US that should follow your system!

(Proud Portuguese and not so proud European…)

jaeleth

… And almost every other country in the world is misrepresented. I live in one of those, it is a very nice country, with very nice people and a good place to live (if you manage to find a decent job, which is rare… very rare…) but the politicians only care about the 2 big cities and I don´t live in one (neither I would like) I know!!!!

Keep it as it is USA, don’t be fooled by those who want to turn an exceptional America into a commonplace shithole… Yes, that´s the right word to use.

Hibernia86

I call BS on this. The 12 largest states don’t always vote the same way, so the rest of the states would be the real deciders of the election. Inside each state we have Governor’s elections that are based on the popular vote and yet we don’t see rural counties trying to break away from the rest of the state. The fact is that the popular vote is the only fair vote and I say this as someone who lives in a rural area.

If you were really concerned about recounts, then we could have the electoral college where the votes were given out by the population (in other words, the state would receive electoral votes according to the number of representatives in the House it has, not including the number of Senators it has). That would allow for an easier recount while still making the election more fair by not giving rural voters more power. The only reason anyone supports the Electoral College is because it helps their candidate win. Most supporters of the Electoral College would flip their opinion if it caused their candidate to lose even though they won the popular vote.

Mark Smith

That’s some of the best stuff that I’ve read lately…thank you for writing.
Keep it up!
If you’re a liberal, may your head explode in a rush of knowledge.

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

You suggested I was a liberal, and I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. I guess I am liberal only in a classical sense, with Christian morals of tolerance … moral tolerances which I believe the modern ‘liberals’ have been testing just a little too much for the last few decades … and the rest of the western world now seems to be waking up to the vacuous and nihilistic nature of their true ideologies?

WSmith

Most if not all contemporary liberals have no idea what ‘Classical Liberalism’ was. Today’s conservative movement is the best comparison. Where as 20th and 21st century liberalism is a kissing cousin to fascism and it’s other Marxist siblings.

Albert Ruiz

Fascism and Marxism are not siblings. They are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

WSmith

Albert, are you familiar with Merriam-Webster? Fascism; An Authoritarian political system headed by a dictator in which the government controls business and labor and opposition is not permitted……Benito Mussolini who was a leading member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), was a supporter of the Socialist International and declared “socialism is in my blood”. That Fascism? Or leading early 20th century progressives like H.G. Wells whose visits to FDR’s White House were front page news wishing to re-brand progressivism as ‘Liberal Fascism’. That Fascism? The National Socialist German Workers Party? That Socialism? The NAZI’s redistributed the wealth taken from Jews right down to their hair brushes……Maybe that hero of the left Joseph Stalin, who killed 10 million in the Ukraine in a single year through starvation (Holodomor). As the pro Soviet New York Times columnist, Walter Duranty, wrote “you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs”. Didn’t you guys love and admire the Soviet Socialist Republics?…..Obama’s suppression of political opposition via IRS targeting of conservative groups? Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the Veterans administration and now stabbing the only Democracy (Israel) in the Middle East in the back. How do you tell a real life fascist from a Marxist anyway? Their both Authoritarian and totalitarian. And before you say racism, Hitler admired Islam, recruited a Palestinian Arab army and met regularly with the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini, who lived in Germany through out the war, on the Jewish Solution. Now those two were like peas in a pod…. Hitler was a National Socialist. Mussolini had socialism in his blood and Stalin is still the hero of Marxist’s world wide. Then there’s Anita B. Dunn of the Obama administration who called the world’s most prolific mass murderer, Mao Zedong, “one of her favorite philosophers” comparing him to Mother Teresa. Philosopher? Maybe it’s just me, but I think it is you, and those of similar mind, who are confused.

Sara Engelbert

You forgot to add CNN watching to latte sipping.

Albert Ruiz

Is ad hominem the best you can do?

Sara Engelbert

That isn’t ad hominem.

Hibernia86

This is a skewed comparison. The fact is that the urban areas produce far more of the economic income than the rural areas. Rural people aren’t more important to our economic well being (no matter how much that hurts their egos). I say that as someone who lives in a rural area. America is supposed to be a nation that is one person one vote. If you start giving the rural areas more say than urban areas, then you are no long a true Democracy because your elections don’t represent the will of the people. You need to treat everyone equally in this country when it comes to elections and the Electoral College doesn’t do that. Trump supporters only support the Electoral College because of how the election turned out. You know Trump would throw a fit if the situation had been reversed with him winning the popular vote and Hillary winning the Electoral College.

John Wood

Very good explanation and essentially a concise summary of aspects of the Federalist Papers which is the underpinning to the Constitution. Don’t, however, expect simpletons like Albert to comprehend.

Yenski

That feeds? We currently WASTE 40% of the food produced, and that’s even AFTER many subsidies for farmers to plant nothing (or non-food crops). This has little to do with food, but everything to do with a voter base.

As you point out that “It’s just so easy for cafe latte sipping urban office workers to completely disregard the macroeconomic realities that existed in the pre-globalized United States” it is just as easy to point out that ‘hillbilly cousin-fuckers that reside in the least-populated parts of the country completely disregard the macroeconomic realities of the current United States.’

It’s no wonder that you spout Alex Jones nonsense and support megachurch ideology, and currently support this backwards system.

Kd Grayson

180 million in red states, 140 in blue.

Jason McKahan

way to reduce urban populations to a cultural caricature you dip-spitting, pickin-grinnin, shit-kicking oakie #irony

Rick Wolf

if thats what you think then you dont understand the electoral college at all, everybody is represented equally this way, and i find it idiotic that people bring this up when they lose and the left lost big

Hamoverfist

They lost but not big. PA and FL were really close and that is all that was needed.

Albert Ruiz

Just saying “everybody is represented equally this way” doesn’t make it true. If you’re going to claim you deserve more vote than I do, you should give a reason why.

Troy James Martin

Albert, what you fail to understand is that the Constitution outlines that the Chief Executive of the United States is selected by the STATES, not via the direct vote of the people. Displaying the “popular vote” for a presidential election is just a secondary byproduct of counting votes in the individual states to determine to population of the Electors to vote in the Electoral College in December. With the Electoral College in place and functioning as it should, the elected president will be in actuality the President of the United States, not “President of the Ten Most Populated Territories in the Land Mass”. You should thank your lucky stars you have the Electoral College to moderate the national vote into a reasonable consensus. Nations who have not had a mechanism like this have plunged into chaos for much less.

Albert Ruiz

1. We all know where the Electoral College system comes from. That doesn’t make it a good system.

2. People need to stop saying the “10 most populated places” would always pick the winner. All you have to do is look back at past elections to see that is not true.

3. What nations have plunged into chaos because they didn’t have an electoral college?

Troy James Martin

1. Saying the Electoral College is bad does not make it bad.

2. Why? In the past few elections, the most states with the most votes picked the winner. The system worked.

3. Ask the Kenyans about their 2007 general election. You might learn something.

PhilGB

We live in a democracy. Nobody’s vote is more important than anyone else’s.

johnmoser

I don’t know where you live, but the United States is a republic.

Sara Engelbert

We live in a Constitutional Republic.

Andrew Hayes

No, the Electoral College will, by construction, ALWAYS and FOREVER favor rural voters over urban voters. Even if you argue, as some in this thread do, that it’s important to protect minority opinions via a system like the Electoral College, population-density minorities are much less important to protect in the 21st century than, for instance, race, religion, immigration status, sex, and gender minorities. Just look at a tally of the hate crimes committed since Nov 8.

The Electoral College, although not perfect, was the fairest representative system that the Founding Fathers could come up with. I guess the country has agreed for almost 250 years.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

The US was very different when the system was agreed — partly due to issues with slavery, state sovereignty and other factors that aren’t so relevant today. It’s persisted because changing it would require a supermajority vote, not likely since that would require one of the two parties to vote against their own interests.

I have yet to hear a satisfying argument why someone in Vermont should have more say than someone in New York. But if there are good reasons, I’m open minded. Can you think of a specific scenario where a simple popular vote would lead to an unfair outcome? I can’t.

Sara Engelbert

I personally think this system is fair. I think that state sovereignty is very relevant. If you look at the county map, especially, Hillary only won a few urban areas in the country which is hardly representative of the country as a whole. I think that Trump won enough of the popular vote plus the state vote to make it fair. There is too much diversity across the country in terms of population and industry that needs to be represented that would not be represented with just a popular vote.

Albert Ruiz

Personally I think a populat vote would be more fair, but I do respect the argument.

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

If we substitute ‘slavery’ (Plantations), with globalism and the actual wage slavery in foreign countries and welfare dependence of the disenfranchised rural/suburban American, could we categorize the average cafe latte sipping, city dwelling, Apple iPhone tapping, abortion loving, trust fund baby, as a plantation operative? In my opinion, domestic slavery was extinguished, then it went global as a technocracy, and now all the ‘social activists’ have become advocates for globalism simply because they don’t have to look at it in their own urban backyards, whilst rural areas have been carved out by overseas plantation competition (a race to the bottom to destroy worldwide average workers conditions … and the western Union Movements all went along with it! How ironic!). I would say that the Electoral College is still alive and well, for a very good reason, and that not much has really changed at all. In my humble ex-urban now rural opinion.

glad I’m old

Mr, Galka – Its rare that I blatantly call someone a bloody ignorant – but many of your posted suppositions seem to show you are. I just can no longer go through this thread without commenting on severe errors you have repeatedly stated. Slavery had NOTHING to do with the writing of the CONSTITUTION of the UNITED States of America. The FIRST colony to rebel and declare independence (two months BEFORE the Decl of Independ) from English rule was also the first independent republic to refuse to even join in the talks of a “united” country. Over the 12 yrs – most never realize it took 12 years to frame the Constitution – that independent Republic continued to voice its opposition to the concept of a “one government” and in the end it was only upon the threat of tariffs with its border Republics did it agree to and become the LAST signatory to the Constitution of the UNITED States of America. The inclusion of the Bill of Rights was a motivating factor to those groups through out the Republics that feared a national take over and loss of “local” control. That fear of being swallowed up was the reasons for both the equal representation in the Upper House (Senate) and the Electoral College selection of a super commander (president). For the first 130+ years the election of senators was done by the state legislatures NOT popular vote.

The whole concept of slavery was NEVER a major issue. The Civil War was states rights vs federal rights per the agreed to limits in the Constitution. The Federal gov’t was usurping the powers of the states to control more areas than were designated by the Constitution. IF slavery was an issue then why wasn’t the Emancipation Proclamation made within days of the onset of the Confederacy’s formation & withdrawal from the Union? The war had been going for 20 months BEFORE it was issued. (North had lost most of those battles to hastily formed Confederate armies). AND more so why did it ONLY free slaves south of the Mason Dixon Line? Most Northern slaves were not freed until 4-5 years AFTER the war was ended. It was strictly a military tactic to weaken the Confederacy’s ability to continue fighting by eliminating a portion of its labor force. There was none of the altruistic bullcrap that has been associated to it in the decades since. What was the difference between it and blockading southern ports so foreign aid was not able to reach the Confederacy’s military forces? The Federal force already had a navy vs the south. What would have happened IF the Boston & NY & Philly harbours had been unusable to the north?

So much ignorance about this country’s formation and history that it is truly sickening to see the “whitewashing” to fit a political agenda. The first slave owner was a black man. 1850s Georgia had more black slave owners than white. Crying out for a popular vote without knowledge of why there is an Electoral College system is ignorance. Saying the the statics of a “gov’t” agency prove your point when you fail to see the flaws in the methodology is IGNORANT!. If some congressman tomorrow wrote a law that the sky had changed colour to burmusk and got the lame duck session to approve it and the current pres signed it. Would you believe it? Or would common sense tell you it was bullcrap? I really want to say “who the fxnf” believes that “unemployment is down” because less people no longer qualify for payments EVEN IF they still do NOT have a job. What idiots can back that lie because it looks good for some gov’t leader? IGNORANT ones.

You claim to be open minded so maybe you can tell us why there was NO call to recount and verify the votes in the most populated 35 counties – not even whole states – just a few counties? If there was fraud isn’t it most likely to occur where the population is the most dense? Most likely to make mistakes by pure volume of votes cast?

JACK WILLIAMS

Good. As a black conservative, good on them.

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

urbanrural synergy. Economically speaking, I believe you are incorrect about the city populations requiring equal representation than the rural. Clearly the US was not setup as a pure democracy with universal suffrage, and there was a very good reason for this. Service center port cities which contribute a much higher percentage of the nations trade deficit, should not have the right to determine the overall destiny of an entire, and diverse (culture and resource wise) landmass.

Brandon Buchner

First off, this thread has been remarkably civil. I commend everyone for that. Secondly, Albert, I would love to see a system where the electorate was selected on a percentage of the voting population of that state. Example, Clinton should be getting 34 electoral votes for California (61.4%) and Trump should get 18 electoral votes (33.3%). The concept of winner take-all means there are lots of people in certain states, that refuse to vote because it’s meaningless. Here in Illinois, I knew my vote wouldn’t matter anyway, and since I don’t like Trump, but planned to vote Republican, I just wrote in McMullin. And my vote counted just as much as the hundreds of thousands who voted for Trump in this state…precisely zero. That’s not fair. We downstaters, are un-represented every election. Now, I know that California technically has less power than say, Wyoming on an elector per person basis; however, the concession is that California controls 1/8 of the entire House of Representatives. I see that as a fair trade-off. It’s like federal checks and balances, only built in to the election process. California can’t become too powerful because of 1. only having two senators, and 2. receiving less of an electorate per voter. However, California has a huge voice in the House of Representatives. Seems fair to me.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

+1 commending everyone for the thoughtful, civil comments.

You make a good point. For obvious reasons, most of the talk about the Electoral College concerns whether those two additional senator votes are fair. In my opinion, the issue you raise is the more important one, whether the Electoral College is fair to people in states where the outcome is a foregone conclusion. And it goes both ways — not really fair to Clinton voters in Illinois either, since their vote is also meaningless. All the power rests with voters in states like Florida, where just a few hundred votes can decide the election.

I disagree on the issue of per person voting power. The Senate is an important check and balance when it comes to legislation, since legislation can adversely affect certain states at the expense of others. But for a binary decision like presidential elections, I think each person is impacted equally and should have an equal vote. That’s how nearly every other country chooses their head of government, and it’s how we choose every other elected office. That said, your argument is just as valid.

thepermman

Pima
County, where Tucson, Arizona is located, is the same size in physical
size at Connecticut, Vermont, Maryland, and a few other states. It has a
population larger than North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Vermont,
DC, and Alaska. Phoenix, the capital of Arizona, eats all of Pima Counties votes. Tucson gets 0 votes, but North Dakota gets 3.

Also,
Arizona and Alabama both voted for Trump. However, Arizona gets more
electoral votes than Alabama. Arizona gets 11, and Alabama gets 9. More
people actually voted in Alabama than voted in Arizona.

Wyoming voters are worth 3.62 California voters. Mostly vacant States have an advantage over populated states. So no, not everyone is represented equally.

The
electoral college is screwed up in all sorts of ways. 48 States have a
winner take all policy. This massive discontent is what happens when
half the population feels screwed. Donald Trump said the election was
rigged…

Jay

I didn’t lose and I think your the one being “idiotic” as you put it.

richard keilholtz

Clinton would have lost the popular vote without the vote margins of JUST NYC and LA. So it isn’t about just 10 major cities deciding the election. In the case of 2016, just TWO metropolitan areas were responsible for Clinton’s popular vote majority. For those talking about one person one vote, how it it democratic for just two major cities (both HUGELY and consistently liberal) to decide an election for a president who represents the whole country. This map actually argues for, not against, the electoral college.

Albert Ruiz

“Just” NYC and LA? That’s 12 million people. I would hope their vote has a chance of mattering. As it stands, their vote has a smaller chance of deciding the election that any given 500 people living in Florida. How democratic is that?

JACK WILLIAMS

Oh well. Small states like mine in ND matter too.

Robert DL

66% of the population live in less than 4% of the land area. If only the “city vote” counts, that’s means that the remaining 96% of nation is subject to that 4%

Albert Ruiz

No, 34% of the nation would be subject to 66%, the majority. This is a government of the people not of the land.

Brandon Buchner

But you must agree that the Electoral College provides greater breadth of the nation than direct popular vote? Large urban areas tend to have matching ideals, much the way that large rural areas tend to have matching ideals. Electoral College defends against “mob rule” where a large gathering of like-minded people get to control the government. Furthermore, large cities grow exponentially, where rural growth is more linear (or in many cases non-existent). The more people you keep adding to a localized population, the greater chance you have to completely tip the scales of Democracy just by virtue of location. It’s all moot anyway, because there is no guarantee that Trump wouldn’t have won the popular vote. If going in, both candidates knew it was a popular vote election, the campaign strategies change heavily, and who knows what would have happened. I’ll tell you one thing though. Many states would have been completely ignored.

Albert Ruiz

Yes. Everyone knew the rules beforehand. Not winning the popular vote doesn’t make Trump’s victory any less legitimate.

I assume you mean many states would *not* have been completely ignored. Agree.

PhilGB

So if we elected the president by popular vote, you’re saying republican candidates wouldn’t have a chance?

John

I don’t think the electoral college needs changed, it has served for many many years and just because of a migration to cities it is not wrong!!

p4045100363

I don’t know where you are from. Popular vote is NOT how our Country was founded, We use Electoral College to determine the winner of the FEDERAL PRESIDENTIAL elections This ensures that the people of EACH STATE have a voice in the election.

Perhaps you might be confusing your “personal” voice on laws, regulations and, social constructs? If so, then that’s why we have DIRECT ELECTIONS for our Congressional Representatives and Senators. You have access to them, in person, by mail, Email, Fax, and even, still, by telegraph…such as Western Union. They maintain offices in Washington D.C., and in their Home Districts, probably there is one very near you.

Mr. Trump did win the POPULAR VOTE in 30 of the Sovereign States. Those States offered enough ELECTORAL VOTES to cause Mr. Trump to win the Election. He also won in the MAJORITY of STATES, 30-20.

Niteangel

They don’t have more votes Albert, more populated states have more electoral college votes. California has the most, 55. And this year most the country is in the red, not in the blue, except for a few very populated areas.

PeterTx52

apparently you’re unaware that the electoral college votes are determined by a state’s population. California has 55 electoral votes. These states Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming combined have a total of 33 electorals votes. knowing that California is 63% Democratic doesn’t it make sense if you are a Republican to go after those 10 states?

Albert Ruiz

California population = 40 million.
Combined population of the other states = 10 million.

Repeat: what makes people in the country so special that each one of their votes is worth 2 votes from someone in Cali?

PeterTx52

you may want to go back and study constitutional history to understand why we use the electoral college system. god forbid that our nation be directed by the insanity that lives in California. There is a reason why people are fleeing that state and moving to states with less regulations and less taxes

John

Every blue sky scraper is nothing more than hordes and hordes of foreigners that want handouts. The only exception being the northern midwest.

Masey Lynn Cztery

What works in cities often harms rural areas. Where is the food grown/raised in the US? Where are the lumber mills? Can the cities survive without the rural, middle income folks?

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

All fair points. But do you not think the reverse is also true? Are rural policies good for cities? Can rural areas grow/raise the food without the large federal subsidies paid for by cities?

In any case, do you think being more “important” should really determine which states get more votes?

WSmith

What map are you looking at? Donald Trump won 3,084 of 3,141 counties in America. Trump won 30 of 50 states. Are you suggesting that New York City, Los Angeles and a handful of densely populated coastal cities should rule over the entire nation? If you want to live in a dump like NY City or LA that’s fine. But you don’t have the right to ride roughshod over 90% of the country.

Albert Ruiz

We live in a country of the people not of the land. Those 20 states are the MAJORITY.

MSSpahr

What have I missed? Didn’t you just have Obama for eight long years?

Sam Hain

Your utopia would have California and New York ruling America. GOD FORBID !!!

Joe P

Without the electoral college, rural people would have NO voice and would get steam rolled by you dirty city people. The system is obviously working.

DBS5347

It’s pretty obvious that needs differ radically between rural and urban populations. 82% of US counties do not need to be dictated to based on the needs of the paltry 18% that Clinton won. If LA and NYC want specific laws and policies then they can implement them at the local or state level without imposing their wishes on the rest of the country that doesn’t live in LA or NYC and has no need or desire or what they want. The bottom line here is: The constitution is against you. Deal with it.

Drumwaster

I think you misunderstand how and why the Electoral College exists… it is a mechanism for the States to choose the President, rather than the People.

Each State can pick its own method of distributing its electoral votes, whether it is by a State-wide election, or by Congressional District votes (as Maine and Nebraska do), and it would be Constitutionally legal if a State chose to award its EVs to whichever candidate is tallest or the one that has the darkest hair. Weird, but legal as Elections on Tuesday. If a State’s Legislature decides to hold a vote because it didn’t like the result and send its own slate of electors (as Florida had contemplated back in 2000), that is also legal.

But it is the States that choose the Presiding Officer of the Federal Government, not the People. And just because one candidate managed to score more cumulative votes at a national level than the others is irrelevant to the vote of the Electoral College, which is the State’s holding their own election for President, not the citizens. There is NO SUCH THING as a “National Vote Total”, because we don’t hold elections at the national level, merely 51 separate elections that are on the same day – each with its own rules, requirements and results.

Albert Ruiz

Don’t disagree with any of your points. I understand how the Electoral College works and why we have it. And I agree that the popular vote is irrelevant. Everyone knew the rules before the 2016 election, and Trump won fair and square.

My question is about whether it is the system we should be using going forward. When the Electoral College was created, each state operated much like its own independent country. At that time, it made sense for the states to choose the president.

Nowadays, for better or worse, all the power is at the federal level. Maybe there is an argument that someone living in the country deserves more say than someone who lives in the city. But if there is, I haven’t heard it.

Drumwaster

Each State did act as though it were its own separate political entity, and we pay lip service to that even today. Each State has its own Chief Executive, it’s own legislature, its own laws against one thing and another, it’s own military forces and police forces and flag and auto license plate designs and all the rest that comes with being a sovereign political entity. It was the compromise between the high population States (like Virginia, which was to the early colonies what California is to the nation today) and the low population States where they all got a certain number of votes to cast, based roughly on the population, but since each State got equal representation in the Senate, that helped.

Each State should be handling its own issues to benefit its own citizens and concerns. If there arises a conflict between the State and the Federal Government, there exists a venue in which some disputes can be heard.

But the whole point of Federalism means that we should be deciding issues at the lowest level possible. Speed limits? Vote at the city or county levels. Kids driving at 16 or 17? Vote at the State level, since it is a State agency affected. The kind of light bulbs we use in our homes? How is that POSSIBLY a national-level issue? Yet here we are.

I have hopes, given Trump’s recent promise to slash 75% of bureaucratic nonsense, that things will drastically improve.

But unless you wish to posit the States using a system similar to Maine’s or Nebraska’s, the rest would involve a Constitutional Amendment. The attempt to bypass the Electoral College by states promising to cast their votes in favor of whichever candidate wins the so-called “national popular vote” is in direct opposition to what their citizens would want. (Seriously, do you think that the residents of DC or California would have liked watching their EVs go to George W. Bush in 2004? They would have. Or Oklahoma going to Hillary in this last vote? Same thing.) There would be a flood of lawsuits the first time it is tried to apply it. They might as well say they were going to cast their EVs to the tallest candidate, and it would be just as legal, and make as little sense.

Albert Ruiz

Yes, I would love to see more power given back to the states and local levels. But as things stand, the most important decisions are all made at the federal level.

If you’re arguing that it would be difficult / impossible to actually change it in practice, you’re probably right. But whether or not it can actually be done is really a separate debate.

http://www.leeuniverse.tk leeuniverse

People who don’t live in “City’s” tend to be more MORAL and less CRIMINAL.
Cities in all of history has always been “cesspools”, and the bain of good society.
Take guns for example…. FAR more guns are owned by those not in the cities, yet if you removed the cities with the high gun crimes (most of which are Leftist cities, and have gun bans, or super hard to get them or even at all), the U.S. would be the most safe country in the world.

Further, your argument is flawed…. The Electoral College ensures that ALL sides get a say in the governing of the country. If it was by popular vote alone, the cities would rule the entire rest of the country which is mostly RED, so I also have no idea why you’re saying most are “Blue”.

Albert Ruiz

Makes me sad to see the way people are talking about their fellow countrymen these days, erecting these imaginary dividing lines and drawing broad generalizations about the other size. So unpatriotic.

Many of your claims are factually incorrect, but something tells me there is not much sense in pointing them out.

http://www.leeuniverse.tk leeuniverse

What makes me sad is people like you who don’t live by facts but “feelings”, at the expense of your fellow countrymen, and the expense of the Constitutution and basic human rights itself.

The only ones erecting “dividing lines” are Leftists like you, who divide everyone by race and class instead of character and right and wrong.
Nothing I’ve said is “factually incorrect”, if it was, it would be easy to point out, but since you leftists live by “nuance” rather than basic facts and reality, you can’t point it out. You think the “#NotAll” argument is an argument, it’s not.

Every single American, including blacks, muslims, and legal immigrants killed, raped, and harmed by your open border anti-American leftist views, is BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS. Death and harm caused that DID NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN…….

Japan and South Korea understands the importance of preserving their culture, but still allowing people of good will in. They aren’t “racist” or other bullcrap lies you leftist’s claim of America’s Right who has the same kind of values. And neither is Mexico who has FAR strictor immigration laws than even the Right want for the U.S.
So, YOU keep dividing buddy by your lies, and your willful perversion and corruptions. It’s exactly what got Trump elected.

Albert Ruiz

Why do you assume I have those views? Do you think all 180 million of your city dwelling countrymen are the same person? So sad.

PhilGB

You should be ashamed of yourself. Comments like that give a bad name to conservatism. Talk about identity politics, then demonize everyone who lives in a city, acting like you’re morally superior. You don’t really care about the country. You just care about the proving your “team” is superior to the other “team.”

Rebel

Could we not say the same about people who live in the city??? You people will never learn that it’s a 2 way street.

Albert Ruiz

Don’t know what you mean. The Electoral College gives more voting power to rural Americans than it does to urban Americans. This may have been a good system with the country was founded, but I don’t see the argument for it today. And until this election, the majority of people on both sides agreed.

Assuming you live in the country, why do you think you deserve more vote than someone living in the city?

(Please don’t say, “because otherwise the country would be ruled by a few big cities.” You only have to look at the history of past elections to see this is not the case.)

Rebel

So why are you just now bringing up the Electoral College situation? Were you this concerned 8 years ago? 4 years ago?

Albert Ruiz

Answering a question with a question. Ok, I’ll bite.

> So why are you just now bringing up the Electoral College situation?

Please read my original comment. it was not me who brought it up.

> Were you this concerned 8 years ago? 4 years ago?

I’m not particularly concerned about the electoral college, I’m offended by some of the arguments I’m hearing to justify it.

Rebel

Who gives a f*ck what offends you? This is how the U.S. was formed and will remain. Like it or leave it.

Gary Michael Rife

Because nobody with a semblance of sanity wants LA and NYC basically deciding alone who the President is.

Albert Ruiz

Nonsense. NYC + LA are on the winning side of the popular vote about half the time, same as everyone else. Together they are about 3% of the population, which is not enough to “basically deciding alone who the President is”

Dave Nesbitt

What makes illegal aliens so special that they get to vote in a country they are not entitled to? Without the 3 million illegal votes in California, Trump wins the pop vote too.

Liberals are just stupid.

bieler

“What makes people in the country so special they deserve more vote than people who live in the city?”

The big one would be that cities are dominated by the parasite class that produces absolutely nothing of value. Nothing of material value, nothing of moral value, and certainly nothing of intellectual value.

Albert Ruiz

So, you deserve more say because you are “better.” Sounds fair and democratic to me.

bieler

It’s not democratic, it’s republican, because the United States is a Republic, not a Democracy. Just one of many examples why your vote is worth less than an intelligent person’s.

Albert Ruiz

Bro, you don’t even know what a democracy is. Here’s what you need to do.
Step 1: Look up “democracy” in the dictionary
Step 2: Give yourself a smack across the face for betraying your country’s values
Step 3: Love it or leave it, please

bieler

Are you even trying to sound intelligent? lol I’ll try again, but you’re clearly a moron, so it probably won’t help: THE UNITED STATES IS A REPUBLIC, NOT A DEMOCRACY

Albert Ruiz

It’s both, a democracy *AND* a republic. Got time to troll, but no time to look up what the words mean?

bieler

No, it isn’t. The electoral college of our REPUBLIC and our triune government of elected representatives and appointed judiciary is specifically designed to be anti-democracy to deny the great mob of dimwitted idiots (of which you are one) the power to ruin the lives of the intelligent minority (of which you will never be part). This is why the great mob of leftist idiots are still wailing and crying about being losers. But please continue being an IQ75 moron who thinks he can lecture someone.

Adam Abelard

No, that is a direct democracy, something that has never existed anywhere in modern times. We live in a representative democracy. He’s right. You should take a moment to look it up, otherwise it makes you sound ignorant and discredits your point. So does needlessly insulting people, anonymously no less.

bieler

Just because you doorknobs want a thing to be true doesn’t make it true. Just like the left’s constant and moronic misapplication of the word “fascist,” your desperation to label completely undemocratic institutions as democratic to appear intelligent and undermine our government is as pathetic, wrong, and duplicitous. Of course, pathetic, duplicitous, and wrong is the foundation of all leftist policy, so it’s no surprise.

Kd Grayson

There are 50 states not 1, the winner has to be popular across the country not in just one spot or state, isolated pockets where millions of illegals have drivers licences

Levi Moeller

we need to get a national feel for how every home views The candidate. If you have 1000 people living in an apartment paid for by tax payers, many of them have the same views and beliefs as the other 999 that live under that roof. Just like if you go to a farm where 5 people work their ass’s off to survive another season i bet all 5 of them have the same views.. that’s why the electoral collage is the only way. Its not that people in the city are not heard. its just you need opinions from every county and every state to get a national feel. not just the ones stuck in high populated areas..
he did after all win over 85% of the national counties and 64% of the states..

Alex d

We live in a Republic. Not a democracy. democracies throughout history have failed due to mob rule. If you want mob rule, join the mob.

PhilGB

Have time to make nasty comments, but not to check facts? A republic *is* a democracy. If you’re talking about a *direct* democracy, I’m pretty sure exactly zero have failed due to mob rule, because there is only one example from history and it was over 2,000 years ago.

You’re welcome to take whatever position you want on the subject, but it would be nice if you could support it with facts, not stuff you just made up.

Rick Wolf

here here , for the REPUBLIC in which we Stand

Jay

“for” which we stand.

Rick Wolf

yes yes of course

ecsmith2

Justin, that is what the Republicans have actually discovered from how the Electoral College works. They have discovered that if, through redistricting, they cram most of the Democrats into just a few congressional districts in a state, that they can get a larger than to be expected Republican representation in the house of Representatives. When you can change the borders of districts, what is just an anomaly with the Electoral College, becomes un-American rigging of elections with gerrymandering.

HarryPsalms

That is a ridiculous statement. Let me ask, why do we not elect our Governors that way? Surely you must be opposed to the population centers within a State having more say than the rural areas….no? And guess what; your description of the purpose of the electoral college is skewed. The Electoral College was created as a compromise to the Southern States who wanted to count SLAVES as part of their population (as one half a person each) so that the North would not be able to dictate anti-slavery laws on the South. Read the history. It was never intended to be that rural America gets to tell the MAJORITY of the population how the country will be run, which is exactly what has happened.

Keith Hays

Its actually worse than it looks. This is based on the Presidential Election which takes that stuff into account. For the house and senate, it would be solid blue across the country if it wasn’t for the way the districts are drawn. They can only maintain that for so long because as the population changes there will be no way to draw districts around Republican voters. Many people think that immigration is responsible for the biggest change. The truth is the baby-boomers are beginning to age out of the population and with them will go all of that red.

Niteangel

I agree Justin. Thank God for the Electoral College. It is what allows all states, big and small, to have a somewhat fair chance to decide who will be the next president. I say “somewhat” because with more population comes more electoral votes, so California is the state with the most votes, 55, which means that obviously a very populated state still has a “louder” voice than a smaller state, but the system is still pretty fair, definitely better than if the election was based directly on popular votes.

Ken N Donna Kushman

This presentation Libsters call BlueShift, should maybe be called, BlueShite.

Land and how its employed for the good of the nation. Is part of why we have the EC. TERRITORY figures into the foot print of what has value in making decisions for the benefit of all. We are a Constitutional Republic NOT a MOB RULE Democracy. Those who do not recognize the need for the EC, NEED REMEDIAL SCHOOLING IN CIVICS & the REALITIES of GVT!

WE Will Not Become a SHITHOLE SOCIALIST DEMOCRACY.

WE are All Guaranteed an equal start, not equal results. If the best you can do is min wage and live in a subterranean shoe box you should not expect the same level of influence from your one vote as low pop density communities that are the bread basket for the nation, etc. If that is beyond a persons understanding AND SUPPORT. Then they proly need to re-lo to someplace where they have ABSOLUTE equal non effective say, because those other forms of gvt only give the illusion of equality. The elites get the upper crust while the masses get to share common misery. Those folks should either get together and buy/build their dream Utopia in some OTHER place to experiment, maybe Mars, OR READ UP and use THE RULES ALREADY IN PLACE, to legally change the Constitution. After WE GET RID OF ALL THE ILLEGAL INVADERS UNBALANCING THE YIN/YANG . NOT BEFORE!!!

James Hanks

Right. EC protects us from majority rule (AKA mob rule) and is what makes us the best country in the world. Imagine how many lives would’ve been saved if 1930’s Germany had an EC….

WSmith

Actually I like the Idea of a ‘county’ majority deciding the national election. That would force elitist snobs like Bill, Hillary and Obama to get acquainted with the real America.

Hibernia86

The Electoral College skews the result, giving the votes of rural people more weight than urban people, which is unfair. We are supposed to be a nation where each person gets one vote, not a nation where your vote is counted more depending on where you live. The popular vote is the will of the people. When you have a president winning fewer votes that his opponent, but winning the presidency, then the system is broken. Few Republican would support the Electoral College if the Republicans had gotten more votes but lost the Electoral College. The only reason they do now is because of the way this election went. It is partisanship winning over democracy.

Justin Craft

If popular vote determined elections, only the major population centers would determine the presidency. There is a very good reason for the electoral college. Popular vote would really take the voice away from a large majority of the country. That goes for both/all parties.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

What makes you say only the major population centers would determine the presidency? Historically, Republicans win the population vote just as often as Democrats.

Sherlock Ohms

Counties and states are decided by popular vote, they are the only popular votes that matter and since we have 50 states each decided by the counties , also by popular vote.

The county map shows popular vote winner by county). Thus, the map is red because Trump won the popular vote across the vast majority of counties.
The electoral votes are given to the winner of the states popular vote so whoever has the most votes in a state gets those electoral votes. Just because California and New York have more people doesn’t mean the rest of Americans just have to go along with what they want. The only thing that matters is you win more states and more districts to get more electoral votes.

The EC elects the President, the EC is just a collection of the will of the States, not the people,

Personally, if they want to change the system, they should give each candidate 1 elector for each COUNTY they win. This would force the candidates to campaign everywhere and, imho, truly represent better who the average American wants as president across the broadest possible spectrum of voters.

It would also end the way in which liberals can dominate certain segments of the society like universities, big schools, big cities and just foist their liberal crap on people who are not interested in the sexual deviant agenda found in San Francisco.

So if we did this last election, Trump wins in a landslide 2600 to 600, roughly.

JerO

This country was not founded on third world sh-thole mob rule mentality!

Jordan

I don’t like that anybody has to be subjected to a “ruler” they didn’t choose for themselves. That being said – it would also be pretty bad if people on 15% of the landmass of a country decided the fates of the people on the other 85%. Solution: Secession. We should have 50 independent countries who work and trade cooperatively with one another. The idea that one central Leviathan system should control people on a landmass the size of the USA is ludicrous at best.

Illuminati

Quebec, Canada.

~70% of spending and investment of the province are in the Montreal area, while this city represents less than 50% of the population.

The Liberal Government remains in power for years thanks to the votes of immigrants (96% liberal) and anglophones (99% liberal) who are concentrated in the city of Montreal.

Having no Electoral College, we are in a situation where Montreal controls everything, and the rest of the province has virtually no way to change this.

Dan Bid

what if you made the height correspond to the winning margin? at the moment it doesn’t seem to give an accurate impression of the relative number of votes. That info is contained within the colours, which works ok, but representing it in that way rather than height seems to suggest to the mind that the entire population of basically all urban areas voted blue. In other words, it does the reverse of what the problem with cartograms seems to be…

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

That is exactly what I wrote above. The 3d map is highly deceiving as is.

Dan Bid

ah missed that

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

The problem I have with your 3d map, is that it is also very misleading.

In a large city area which was won by HIllary, the Trump votes are *visually* hidden in a blue column of Dem votes. For instance, Queens County (NY) had 640k total votes. Trump wins 140k and Hillary 500k … the 500k are represented, because she won the county, but the 140k is in this case ignored, even though they help aggregate a very large portion of Trumps votes nationwide. The bar being dark blue makes this look like a 640k column of Dem votes, even though 1 in 5 votes in this column are Trump votes. The overall effect is that the highly populated urban centers *visually* hide very large qty’s of Trump votes, making it look as if he had no support in population centers.

Your 3d map, AND the 2d bi-color county map, both visually misrepresent the divided nation.

A better 3d map would be to only present the winners margins in pure bi-color, as if the county losers votes had cancelled out an equal portion of the winners, only leaving the overshoot.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

What of the red counties in the center? Since you are looking at them from the top, wouldn’t they all hide the Clinton votes?

http://www.aamichael666.com/ EyesWideOpen

exactly … it’s the same problem, but it’s just that the very large blue columns look far more dramatic. If the map were only to show the victory margin and be in only two colors instead of shades, then I just think it would be less deceiving (I’m not saying you did it on purpose though).

Love the 3D map but I’ve got questions about the data. LA County went for Clinton 1,890,000 to 620,000 for Trump, a margin of 1,270,000 votes. Yet your column for Cook County (Chicago) is about the same height, even though in Chicago, Clinton got 695,000 votes and Trump got 317,000 votes, a margin of only 378,000 votes. Why is the column for Cook County the same height?

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

The data I’m looking at shows about 2 million total votes in Cook County. In any case, the height of each county represents the total number of votes for all candidates. The color indicates the margin of victory (darker = bigger victory).

Korakys

I actually filled out all the counties for Wikipedia’s plain county map — manually. It was a bit of a rush job, but no one else was doing it. I used the NYT as my info source and I notice that it doesn’t line up with your map (probably because of revised ballot counts). I will revise my map at some point, but I’d rather only do it once; do you have any idea of when final results will be in? Also, do you know why Alaska doesn’t report county results?

If you didn’t already think US politics was incredibly screwed up, individually looking at the shape of every single US county will convince you that US politicians have been living beyond the edge of insanity for a long time now. There is no rhyme nor reason to be found.

(Americans appear to worship history in general. And every time I hear that “America is a young country that doesn’t have much history” I roll my eyes. I live in a country that is less than half the age of the US.)

Good map by the way. Hex maps are definitely my favourite of the 2D variety.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

If you ask me it’s pretty annoying the government doesn’t make this information easily accessible in the first place. For Alaska, I think it’s probably the AP that for some reason is not posting the county-level results, since they are the source most media outlets use for election data. Alaska actually does post them on their website: http://www.elect.alaska.net/

Have been meaning to put together a gerrymandering map. It gets crazy at the level of congressional districts.

Korakys

Looks like Alaska lists its results by State House districts and not by Counties.

Yeah, Congressional Districts are truly bizarre shapes, but at least there is a method behind that particular madness. Only Britain’s rotten boroughs of centuries past, where as few as half a dozen voters elected some MPs, strike me as a worse example.

No, no, no! The 3D map is STILL terribly misleading. The counties are different sizes, yet the height increments are the same. Individual voters should be represented by a constant volume, not a constant height increment. The 3D map makes Alaska look like a gargantuan red state electoral powerhouse.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Agree that showing the number of votes as volume would be a “more correct” way to show the data. But have to balance that with readability. Comparing heights is simple and intuitive. Comparing volumes is confusing and would be hard to read.

Tom Trevor

The County map is much more representational of the true make up of the vote. The 3d map gives a total faults impression in fact the 3 d map is so bad it really can only be called a lie. As of now Clinton won the so called popular vote (so called because that is not the way the election is decided) by about 1,3000,0000, about half of that margin came solely from New York County which is basically Manhattan Island and few islands in the East River. If the election was based on popular vote that one county which is so geographically small it can’t be seen on most to scale maps of the US, would have a very disproportionate influence. Most of the country is not urban areas, a very large number of people don’t live in urban areas and the people who live in rural and suburban areas should have a say also. The Electoral College gives them a say. Trying to make Trumps win look small by grossly distorted maps is just plain wrong.

Tom Trevor

This is how liars make up maps.

Dave Weaver

Don’t forget the versions which use shades of purple to show each county. Most counties are a combination of blue and red. It’s misleading to act like it’s all one or the other.

Siri Veland

Would this graphic look the same if you plotted the voters as proportion of total population size?

It is just as misleading that the heights are not normalized by each county’s area.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Not misleading. That implies intent to skew the facts. Agree that a volume map would in some ways be more correct. But that only matters if you can actually read it. It’s easy to look at any two counties and see which one is taller. Not so easy to compare by volume.

Michael Yu

Misleading doesn’t necessarily mean intending to skew the facts. Same as the typical 2D graphics of the voting, it is the quantitative improperness of the visualization that may give a wrong impression, i.e. mislead. Anyway, in this case, one solution would be to just hard highlight the county borders so that it’s obvious we are meant to consider each county as a singular height value.

JACK WILLIAMS

Skip all those ugly maps. I like all the red. MAGA

ersc

That’s quite a different insight to see the results broken down by county with depth. Sure paints a sad picture at how much influence big cities have, however. In Minnesota, people have always complained that Minneapolis, St.Paul and Duluth make all the decisions for the state. Only 4 counties are blue, all three cities reside in a blue county. And our electoral vote was blue.

TS Atomic

Popular votes are “shots taken”. Electoral College is “Points Scored”. The reason we do not want a popular vote at the federal level is because we are a federated republic of states. You must win *states*.

Under the constitution, the Federal is (was) supposed to be fairly limited as compared to each state which was to be it’s own little petri dish of an experiment in liberty with the potential to become different sets of morals, values and ethics. NYC morals simply do not fit Wyoming morals. West Tx morals do not fit well in the Bay area of CA. Without the EC, a handful of Metro areas would dictate their morals and ethics on the rest of the country. With the EC, the Metro areas can still win the day — *if* they convince the rest of the states to go along with them, but they can’t force their unique political and governing philosophies on the entire rest of the country.

And because the popular vote simply counts people, then liberal’s (who tend to densely clump together in metro areas) would easily and unfairly dictate their liberal values upon the rest of the nation. They are welcome to dominate in their own “petri dish” as the nation was designed that way, but they are not welcome to inflict the tyranny of their metro majority beyond their state line unless they can convince the rest of the nation to go along willingly.

And this is the crux of the matter and the source of the liberal rage: Their point of view was not validated and worse yet – was soundly rejected by the majority of states. And they simply can not bear that someone thinks differently from them or disagrees with them. As evidence, read the replies this post will undoubtedly receive.

Albert Ruiz

You’re right.

> “Popular votes are shots taken. Electoral College is Points Scored. The reason we do not want a popular vote at the federal level is because we are a federated republic of states. You must win *states*.”

I’m a liberal and I agree with this. Trump won the vote fair and square under the rules we have, and nobody should be complaining. In some years, the electoral college favors red states. In other years, it favors blue states. And in any case, it rarely comes out different from the popular vote, so probably not worth the hassle of changing.

But, you misunderstand the liberal rage.

> “And because the popular vote simply counts people, then liberal’s (who tend to densely clump together in metro areas) would easily and unfairly dictate their liberal values upon the rest of the nation.”

It is explanations like this that you should be careful with. Republicans win the popular vote just as often as Democrats. It sounds like you’re saying it’s not ok for the blue areas to dictate their values over the red areas. But the reverse is ok, even when “blue” includes the majority of Americans.

> “they can’t force their unique political and governing philosophies on the entire rest of the country”

When you say the “entire rest of the country” I assume you’re referring to the rest of the states. But you should keep in mind that *entire* rest of the country is a minority of Americans. And saying it that way can be misinterpreted as, “this is our country, not yours.”

TS Atomic

It *IS* our country – yours and mine both liberal and conservative. The point I failed to make clear is that Liberals in a handful of *CITIES* want to force their metro-liberal preferences on the entire rest of the nation — both liberal and conservative.

Liberals in metro areas simply can not stand the thought that someone, somewhere else (Georgia, Texas, Nebraska) may not want to live under the same “falsely-enlightened” morals, values and point of view. Meanwhile, Constitutional conservatives believe (like the founders) that each state was it’s own laboratory of liberty. States-rights provide them the freedom to experiment — within the bounds of the constitution — however they like. It’s why I will never leave the south-east and wouldn’t live in CA if you *gave* me a beach-front home and a million dollars to pay the taxes (presuming that would cover it). But I also don’t care how CA runs their state, as long as they don’t try to force it on me. The opposite is not true. CA Liberals in just two metro areas *desperately* want to dictate to the rest of the nation, no matter if the impacted liberals or conservatives agree with them. When conservatives disagree with regional politics, they move. When liberals disagree with regional politics, they hold the govt’s gun to your head and force you to bake a damn cake, make a flower arrangement, or something else as ludicrous. Liberals can be relied on to over-reach, each and every time in their pathological yearning for validation of their eff’ed-up morals, values and point of view. And when they don’t get that validation voluntarily, they use the govt to force it.

So, to make it clearer, liberals in a handful of metro cities should *never* have the electoral power to run roughshod over the rest of the country. The founders wanted candidates to be forced to win *states* not *cities*. And the broad spectrum of folks in the rest of the nation — even though not clumped into a liberally insane metro area — may not total more popular votes, but they will represent a for more representative sample of the nation from far left to far right and everything in between. Those bat-crap crazy, bleeding-heart metro liberals are all cut from the same cookie-cutter anti-liberty mindset and vote in lock-step as their betters in D.C. & the propagandizing media outlets order them to vote.

There is simply *no* rational argument for allowing voters with cookie-cutter, anti-liberty mindsets in a handful of cities to replace the electoral college and dictate their tyranical despotism to the rest of the nation.

Catherine Kimport

Can I suggest a tweak? Instead of linking height to votes directly, link height to votes divided by area — that way, the *volume* of each county will be proportional to the number of votes, and not the height.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Thought about doing it that way. Would probably be technically more accurate. The reason I didn’t is because volume is hard to compare when the shapes are so different.

movarth

fuck Commifornia.

CFHinLA

What that last graph shows is that almost all of Hillary’s supporters were in the major urban areas. I don’t want a few S hole cities determining the tack of the entire country. It doesn’t matter which side of the aisle that represents. For the record I live in LA County. NYC, Chicago, LA, Seatle and God helps us…San Francisco should not decide the direction of America simply because people want to live on top of each other like stacks of cord wood.

Oh, and had Hillary not SCREWED Sanders, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. Had Bidden’s son not died, I KNOW we wouldn’t be having this conversation. This wasn’t a year of the best candidate won. It was a year of who is less of a complete disaster of a candidate.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Yes. The fact our choice came down to two intensely disliked candidates tells me there is a major problem with the system. And there is no incentive from either side to fix it.

I don’t understand your first point though.

>San Francisco should not decide the direction of America simply because people want to live on top of each other like stacks of cord wood.

Why would San Francisco decide the direction of America? The GOP wins the popular vote just as often as the Dems.

http://www.orgonegemstone.com/ Derek

“To look at all the red it would appear Republicans dominated the race. In reality, Democrats received a larger share of the popular vote.”

Your missing the point. It’s better to win more counties then to win the “popular vote.” The Republicans did indeed dominate the race in a landslide! When the majority of people live in California and New York it would be a scary situation if we went by the popular vote. We are a country of states, each with it’s own political culture, this is why the founders created the electoral college. Else, millions of illegals could immigrate to sanctuary cities and change the tide of votes.

Brian Scanlon

Politics aside, I have a question about the data representation. Shouldn’t the height of each area be scaled by the area represented? The prism map exagerates the importance of counties with large areas. Compare Alaska to Wyoming. Similar populations and Wyoming had a larger margin of victory, but Alaska with no county divisions is exagerated in height.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

The point is very valid — a few others have made similar comments. There is no right or wrong, but here is why I prefer this way.

Mapping the votes by volume would be like a 3D pie chart, each county representing a portion of the whole. The problem is that volumes are difficult to compare when the shapes of the objects are very different. Also, the shapes of the counties here are simplified, and their areas may be very different from their real life areas, meaning the volumes would not be accurate anyway.

Mapping the votes by height is more like a 3D bar chart. I like this way better since heights are easy to compare.

p4045100363

Max Galka,
Love your work, and your ability to explain it the masses.
You posted “His maps deform the shape of each state/county so that each area is sized proportional to its population” Which is true, yet you understate that it detracts from the reality of our Republic vs a Democracy. The whole point is that a few States, large population centers, can RULE the many. Once that occurs, the “few” hold little hope of ever again having a voice.

Max, have you or anyone else that you know attempted a map of election results by Congressional District? Maine apportions its electoral votes based on results from CDs, which is how the electoral college members are chosen. Not sure how Nebraska does it, but it is the other state that apportions rather than winner takes all. By using CDs on a map, that would address the population size variants to a degree, at least better than counties. I like the idea of gradation of color from pure red to pure blue based on reasonable proportions.

One thing has been apparent for a long time: there is no voter or election integrity in the big cities. I don’t mind giving Urban areas the power if you don’t abuse it unlawfully. Railroading, literally, foreigners into America and then fast-tracking them to citizenship for the main purpose of voting in this election is transparent to say the least. (Same goes for the felons of Virginia.) The number of votes cast illegally in this election is estimated at 2-3 million, none of which went to Trump, I feel safe to say. In Detroit, 37% of its precincts had serious problems including vastly more ballots cast than there are citizens registered to vote. This same thing happened in both of Obama’s elections. Thanks, Jill Stein, for proving the fraud issues in the Michigan recount.

Bernie was robbed, and some Dems aren’t happy about that, so someone close to it all leaked the HRC/DNC/Podesta emails – Putin is watching it all with buttered popcorn. He didn’t need to do a thing but warn the World that Hillary has a track record of warmongering. I agree, and that’s why I voted against her. All Repub alternatives were no different from her except for Trump.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

As far as I know, nobody has managed to put together a complete picture of the results by congressional district. Though I don’t think it would be so hard to do, probably just means gathering it from state / county websites.

In my view, the press has been too quick to dismiss claims of illegal voting as conspiracy theory. There does seem to be evidence that it may be happening, though I can’t imagine it’s very big. I’m pretty certain the 2 – 3 million number that’s been thrown around is nonsense. The “study” that reached that number doesn’t even seem to exist.

There are only 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, fewer living in cities, and even fewer who are adults. I also don’t really see the point, since most states with big cities are basically guaranteed to vote blue anyway.

I share your concerns about Hillary. I think the real failure this election was the inability of the system to produce halfway decent candidates.

jimb82

Conflating two things. The 2-3 million illegal votes that are being alleged are getting confused (including by Trump) to mean “votes by 2-3 million illegal aliens.” I think the allegation is that when you include dead people, absentee ballots filled out by someone else (especially for very elderly people), people voting twice, felons, and, yes, aliens, that’s how you come up with 2-3 million illegal votes.

PeterTx52

California has 55 electoral votes. These states Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming
combined have a total of 33 electorals votes. knowing that California
is 63% Democratic doesn’t it make sense if you are a Republican to go
after those 10 states and ignore California?

Norah Black

The electoral college is a joke and it is on the way out. It’s done. Too many people got screwed from it this time and they aren’t going to forget. It’s as good as gone and….good riddance to bad rubbish.

Gov’t is not God!

Florida looks like a penis on the cartogram above.

WSmith

So, Max is making the point that blue (Democrat) counties are more ‘Important’ than red (Republican) counties. What ever happened to ‘equality’? The fact is that without an evening factor to give lower population states a more equal representation in congress and national elections, America would never have become a reality. A straight popular vote would deny most of the country any representation outside the high population centers. You know, the people who think food grows on the grocery store shelves.

MSSpahr

You elitist map makers/analysts can slice it and dice it any way you wish, but the fact remains that the deplorables won. Time to live with that reality.

Sam Hain

Man that’s a lot of illegals voting in California. Let’s hope they secede.

Ernie Williams

The whole purpose of the electrical college system, which is in the Constitution, is to give equal voice to the small states and low population centers so the high density population centers can’t run over the rights of the smaller states. This has worked well and as designed for 240 years. Most of the liberals believe, in error, that Congress can pass a law outlawing or changing the electrical college and the way it operates, but, because of its inclusion in the Constitution, it can ONLY be changed or removed by the prescribed ammendment process. I do not see too many of the smaller states willing to give up their own rights that easily, so lots of luck there libs.

Dave Koch

Oh this is rich, talk about blatant distortion! So the left (and the right for that matter) tried everything to stop Trump, but in spite of the heavy headwinds against him he won, plain and simple. The GOP doesn’t try to stop anyone from running, the DNC tried to coronate Hillary. If the “better” GOP candidates hadn’t wilted so badly and some, so early, or the DNC hadn’t tried to run with such a flawed candidate, the results would’ve been different. But they didn’t and now they aren’t. These silly distorted maps are just one more way that the left is trying to distort the facts. The election by county map is the true representation and overwhelming evidence of the genius of the electoral college. Otherwise those of us who don’t live on the coasts would be ruled by an elitist class in a handful of counties and cities. Thank you founding fathers!

stringman

While it may sound trite, pure democracy is a case of three wolves and one sheep voting on what’s for dinner.

DBS5347

This article is pretty amusing. Yes the paltry 18% of US counties won by Clinton include some very populous counties. Duh. Who didn’t know that? That doesn’t change the fact that there is no reason to allow those few populous counties to dictate to the rest of the country via the presidency, enter the electoral college which insures that candidates must have at least a reasonably broad geographical appeal to win the whitehouse. Clinton didn’t have it and she lost. Period.

Graham Wellington

Notwithstanding the arguments for whether or not the electoral college be done away with, She didn’t win a majority of the popular vote. 7 million plus voters didn’t vote for her. So, if you want to do away with the electoral system and go to a pure democratic vote, shouldn’t a runoff be involved? Who would those 7 million non-Clinton voters go for?

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

It’s a good point. She didn’t technically win the popular vote, since she didn’t get a majority. Though she is ahead of Trump by almost 3 million votes. For him to win he would have to get 5m of those 7m, which seems pretty unlikely.

1956cyndi

He still won in 5x the counties she did, and- more importantly- won in the area they were running FOR. Do dems support making past superbowl winners turn over their rings to those that won the most total yardage that year to make it more ‘fair’? Sorry, but the ec is because it is VERY easy to potentially cheat in just the dozen or so big cities offering the most votes while impossible to do so nationally. As far as the popular vote is concerned, ‘at this point, what difference does it make?’

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

I don’t think anyone in this thread is disputing Trump’s legitimacy as president. Everyone knew the rules beforehand, can’t go back and change them after the game is over.

An entirely different question is whether or not the Electoral College is the system we should be using going forward. Obviously most liberals are going to say no and most conservatives are going to say yes. But since this election is already a done deal, I don’t see any reason it should be a partisan issue.

What this discussion actually proves is that we absolutely need the electorial college. County by county the Republican Party dominated country. That’s just fact. However popular vote was won by the Democratic Party. So I do not like it that is also fact. The difference between the two pictures is this. The popular vote was won absolutely minimal part of the country that is highly populated. Democrats think that a small majority in highly dense cities on the two coasts primarily should rule the rest of the country. Bogus

Konan Igan

LIARS. This is a JESUIT SCHEME OF CENTURIES NOW TO MAKE WAR AND UPHEAVE POPULATIONS. It was a landslide by a long shot in reality.
The illegal votes were in the Millions…from the start. TRUMP won the election larger than Reagan or any other election. Don’t believe the lies and MSM. Americans are tired of the corruption of this Occult Federal Rogue Government and outright THEFT by these LEFTIST GLOBALISTS. This is PROPAGANDA THEY FEED TO YOU.
Its HOW THEY keep you captive in their FAILING Occult Globalist System…by FAKE NEWS AND LIES…feigning majority rule in favor of a much smaller ILLEGAL minority.

Konan Igan

Time for the red to cut out the blue cancer.

Susan Vue

Looks like a mandate to me.

NJguy – Proudly Deplorable

“Democrats received a larger share of the popular vote.”

Which is irrelevant.

Aldis Ozols

I like the idea of this map. You can zoom in and rotate it. But it would be even better if the electorates were linked to further information such as statistical breakdowns in smaller sections. And then there could be links to the websites of the parties, the candidates, the individual counties – and thus eventually connections to the entire Internet. This could be done easily by linking to a Google search page for “2016 Election in [County]”. A simple software program could thus make the whole map a comprehensive, living information resource on the election.

Sherlock Ohms

The author is deceitful in that there is no such thing as a national popular vote as if we were a 1 state nation, we are 50 states, not just 1. The 3,400 or so counties are all decided by the popular vote!
as is each state also decided by its popular vote. Hillary’s OVERALL popularity is atrocious! over 3,000 counties went Trump while only 200+ went Hillary, THIS IS WHY THE MAP IS SO RED!
EVERY STATE AND EVERY COUNTY IS DECIDED BY POPULAR VOTE!
THE STATES THEN DECIDE THE ELECTORS, NOT PEOPLE!

if you go by how many counties in USA voted for Donald instead of looking at election state by state.
Showing county USA map gives a lot better picture of election with Donald winning by at least 80% .
And within those counties it’s by popular vote.
If you use a nation wide popular vote then the cities with most population would rule this nation all the time leaving 95% of USA without any chance of influence in outcome of Presidential election .
That’s why founders of this great country established the electoral votes to get candidates to listen to all of our citizens & serve the whole country & not just the most populated cities that would dominate with a nation wide popular vote.

If you wish to propose an amendment to the Constitution to allow for election of president by popular vote, you will need a 2/3 majority of both houses followed by ratification of 38 states. You could also call a convention of states and propose the amendment which would require a 2/3 majority of state legislatures. Either way, it’s a tall task.

Please notice that neither approach involves a popular vote of the people.

The map you have posted for the straight red/blue by county map is incorrect, so it’s hard to take anything else you have to say seriously.

MountainDude95

Sorry, but the map labeled Election 2016: County-Level results is not accurate. I don’t know all the specifics, but I know two counties in Nebraska voted Democrat (opposed to zero shown here), two in NV voted Dem (as opposed to one), Salt Lake County was blue, as well as a bunch more blue counties than pictured in CO and CA. I don’t know who made this map, but seriously, at least use an accurate results map!

P3CPilot

Why we have a constitutional republic. Why the Founding Fathers were geniuses when it came to human nature. This country would be run by socialists and people with money, who could buy election results, with the media and the crew in Hollywood supporting their efforts. George Soros would reign supreme and we would all be beholding as subjects, not citizens. Screw that.

rjnvpn

According to the county election results in California, Trump was really the winner in that State too.

Chris

: Thoughts, please.

I’m not sure I see the value added by this map. To me it articulates a standing narrative of how democrats lost the Electoral College, with high concentrations of electoral support in coastal hubs and little outreach between them. It’s an affectation to present this data pro forma.

The lived reality behind the data is that democrats lost the 2016 presidential election, because of a confluence of failures. Especially, to think outside of our partisan minds. Yes, this map shows a higher on average support in urban centers for the democratic message — withstanding our constitutional reality, cities DO NOT elect presidents or give national mandates to federal regimes; States and the Electoral College do.

Perhaps, this map presents a data-driven demand for an effective national strategy focused on transformative lift. The leadership of the democratic party can ignite a change in our present political ecosystem and move us toward progress. If only, they step outside their partisan echo chamber and listen to the data.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

> I’m not sure I see the value added by this map. To me it articulates a standing narrative of how democrats lost the Electoral College, with high concentrations of electoral support in coastal hubs and little outreach between them. It’s an affectation to present this data pro forma.

There is a difference between knowing a fact abstractly and understanding what it means. If this map were only an affectation, you wouldn’t see so many comments like the one below, often from smart people. Yes, everyone knows the Democrats won the popular vote, but when you see that predominantly-red electoral map, your brain still sort of feels like we live in a red country.

The purpose of the map was not to say anything how or why the democrats lost, or to question Trump’s legitimacy. It was to give a more accurate picture of how America voted.

There should be a different choice of colors. The dark blue is hard to see against a black background when the map is tilted.

Paul Byvtary

This map shows clearly the power of welfare.

Albert Ruiz

You realize that red states are massively subsidized by blue states

dannyo66

I personally think we should have the popular vote within the state, but that state has 1 election vote, and it be cast by the governor as the popular vote within his or her state. Then each state has a truly equal vote.

8OOlbGorilla

The county-by-county map isn’t “deceiving” because it “makes it look like Trump won more,” it’s is truthful in showing that Trump won more counties. It isn’t a raw-count/popular vote map. By the way, the US Election system isn’t based on popular vote, so why these self-declared experts keep pointing to popular vote baffles me.

The 3D Prism map, however, is great. It shows very clearly how we must never allow the huge populations of 3-4 major cities determine what is “best” for the remainder of the USA.

The Limousine Liberals in SoCal, NYC, Seattle, Chicago, Austin, Miami, and Portland (ME) need to take a long hard look at themselves and realize that they are economically dependent on those “flyover” states that they think are filling with nothing but uneducated, gun-stroking inbreds. Maybe start to realize that the luxury they enjoy between $3000+/mo apartments, cheap public transportation, every technological convenience imaginable, reliable food & water supply, 24/7 electricity, and so on comes on the backs of hard work, not from tweets and hashtags.

Albert Ruiz

> It shows very clearly how we must never allow the huge populations of 3-4 major cities determine what is “best” for the remainder of the USA.

It is not “3-4 major cities.” It is the *majority* of Americans.

> “flyover” states that they think are filling with nothing but uneducated, gun-stroking inbreds

I live in a city and I certainly don’t think this. It would be silly to paint all 100m+ Americans living in red states with the same brush. And if you don’t like it, why do you do the same with people in blue states?

8OOlbGorilla

It is 3-4 major cities, with high population density, accounting for a large portion of the US population. Thankfully, our founders knew better than to institute another system of either 1) monarchy or 2) majority rule.

I’m glad you don’t think that way. I’m not doing the same, I am specifically speaking about the people who do think that way, of which there are quite a few and they are very vocal about it. Hillary Clinton is one of them.

Albert Ruiz

> I’m glad you don’t think that way. I’m not doing the same, I am specifically speaking about the people who do think that way, of which there are quite a few and they are very vocal about it. Hillary Clinton is one of them.

Agreed. You won’t find any defense of Hillary Clinton here.

That said, she lost and the election was over a year ago. She is now nothing more than an unemployed former-secretary of state living in the woods, irrelevant to the political debate.

> It is 3-4 major cities, with high population density, accounting for a large portion of the US population

Don’t know what this means. The blue areas are the *majority* of Americans. It’s cool if you support the electoral college. But portraying the U.S. like this…

> populations of 3-4 major cities determine what is “best” for the remainder of the USA.

…sounds disrespectful toward more than half of your fellow countrymen, whose voice is just as important as yours.

RichPorardo

I’d love to see how the “Tall Blues” feed themselves when the “Short Reds” tell them to “eff off”. That will last about two weeks before the “Tall Blues” start “eating their own” literally. Grocery shelves are not a concern in my house.

Joe Mack

American Citizens, As GOD is Witness, Look at the Democratic Party Agenda and Legislation, and the Republican Party Agenda and Legislation, regarding MORAL Issues and see which one is in AGREEMENT with the Law of God. You will see that the Republican Party Agenda and Legislation is in AGREEMENT with the LAW of GOD as indicated in the Holy Bible.

Dear GOD and American Citizens, As GOD is Witness, I Apologized and I am SORRY for VOTING for President Obama in the Past because I did NOT know that Obama would Pass Legislation that is AGAINST the LAW of GOD!

Albert Ruiz

Is this meant to be sarcastic? Taking away healthcare from poor people is not the will of god. Not to mention that Trump is a compulsive liar who harasses women and threatens nuclear war. The Dems are nothing to write home about, but the GOP is completely morally bankrupt.

Joe Mack

Please Forward this message to ALL American Citizens for Safety, and for their JOBS, Careers, and Businesses. Democrats & Republicans & ALL Citizens MUST STOP ILLEGAL Undocumented Immigration, STOP Sanctuary Cities, STOP DACA. See “Partial KNOWN” Victims at: http://www.ojjpac.org/memorial.asp

American Citizen Victims like Kate Steinle, Jamiel Shaw’s Child, and Bologna’s Children, G.R., J.W., Baby Reedy, upon THOUSANDS of VICTIMS have been
KILLED by ILLEGAL Undocumented immigrants for YEARS before Donald Trump Ever thought of Running for President, and Many of the KILLINGS Should Have NEVER HAPPEN. Many of the MURDERS Could have been
PREVENTED if America Followed Immigration LAWS.

Thank GOD for President Donald Trump for SUPPORTING VICTIM’S FAMILIES &
CHILDREN who have been KILLED by ILLEGAL
Undocumented Immigrants for YEARS! Those Victims KILLED will NEVER be Forgotten and Justice will be Done.

Ann Coulter’s book “Adios America” SHOULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN YEARS AGO! What a TRAGEDY for American Citizens! This Country can NOT Protect its own citizens & its Borders!

Why does Israel have a WALL? Try telling Israel to Tear Down the WALL.

1) ILLEGAL undocumented immigrants SHOULD TAKE THE JOBS, CAREERS, OPPORTUNITIES, and BUSINESSES of those DEMOCRATS, and
other People, WHO SUPPORT ILLEGAL immigration, and Sanctuary Cities,
and DACA in America!

2) Those DEMOCRATS, and Other Peoples, Who
SUPPORT “ILLEGAL” undocumented immigration and Sanctuary Cities are RESPONSIBLE for the DEATHS, ASSAULTS; and LOSS of JOBS, Careers & BUSINESSES of American Citizens.

There were (and probably still are?) American Businesses that Hire and USE
“ILLEGAL UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS” because they SAVE MONEY,
because the Businesses pay NO TAXES, NO WORKERS COMPENSATION, NO HEALTH INSURANCE–All in VIOLATION OF Federal, States, and City LAWS.

VICTIMS & their FAMILIES KILLED by
ILLEGAL UNDOCUMENTED Immigrants Should be Compensated. Sanctuary Cities, Mayors, Politicians and Organizations that SUPPORT ILLEGAL Immigrants SHOULD BE LEGALLY SUED! And they are Responsible
for those Deaths of Illegal immigrants (or Migrants), and also for the Deaths
of American Citizens. More and More
ILLEGAL Undocumented Immigrants are Risking their LIVES and the LIVES of
American Citizens because of Sanctuary Cities.

The Disrespectful, Harmful, ILLEGAL, and Evil Audacity of “ILLEGAL Undocumented Immigrants” coming to a Country “ILLEGALLY”; and then many of
these “ILLEGAL Immigrants” Fight, Advocate, and Argue for More “ILLEGAL Undocumented Immigrants” to come to America. Thats PATHETIC and
INSANE! Other countries would NOT Tolerate this Insanity. ” Please Support FAIR , ALIPAC , and Victim FAMILIES.﻿

All the Nuclear and Military Weapons can NOT Protect Citizens because this country is being INVADED from the Borders.

Do NOT Spend TAX Payers Money to support any ILLEGAL undocumented immigrants and Sanctuary Cities. I hope its not TOO LATE for AMERICA to STOP
ILLEGAL UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRATION in this Country. You can NOT EVEN
PROTECT THE COUNTRY’S BORDER, its Citizens, and their Jobs & Careers.

DRUGS
America has been INFESTED with DRUGS for YEARS. High school & Grade school Students, and Adults LIVES Wasted, Ruined, and KILLED because of YEARS of DRUGS in this Country. THANK GOD for President TRUMP
for TRYING to STOP DRUGS and for SUPPORTING VICTIMS and their CHILDREN WHO HAVE BEEN KILLED by ILLEGAL Immigrants. STOP
Sanctuary Cities, STOP DACA. Please Support Victims. This country can NOT Properly Protect its Borders and its citizens.

According to White House Press Secretary Sarah
Huckabee, “There are over Four Million Unemployed Americans in the
Same Age Group, as those that are DACA Recipients, That Over 950,000
of those are African Americans in the same age group, Over 870,000
Unemployed Hispanics in the same age group. Those are large Groups of
people that are Unemployed that could possibly have those jobs.”
(Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House Press Briefing September 5, 2017)

American Citizen Victims like Kate Steinle, Jamiel Shaw’s Child, and Bologna’s Children, G.R., J.W., Baby Reedy, upon THOUSANDS of VICTIMS were KILLED by ILLEGAL Undocumented immigrants but they get No Money compensation from Court because the Court Dismissed their Lawsuit case. But then an “ILLEGAL UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANT” sues San Francisco and Wins Court Case for $190,000 because he is an “ILLEGAL Undocumented Immigrant.” That is SO PATHETIC, WRONG, INSANE, and SO EVIL.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT WINS LAWSUIT San Francisco
San Francisco
to pay $190,000 to settle lawsuit brought by illegal immigrant who was reported
to ICE

This country can NOT properly Protect its own Citizens and its Borders.

At least the Egyptian Empire, The Greek Empire, and the Roman Empire Protected their Citizens and its Borders!

Thank GOD for President Trump for SUPPORTING VICTIMS. Politicians, Journalists, and Others, Should have TRIED to STOP ILLEGAL Undocumented Immigration YEARS AGO in this country, for SAFETY of American Citizens.

To the Victims and their Families, Please have patience, as GOD Will be getting
you Justice, and JUSTICE WILL BE DONE!

Mothers and Fathers are Responsible for their Children, and Countries are Responsible for their Citizens. Those Parents who ABANDON their Children are PATHETIC, Disgusting, LUSTFUL and EVIL, and their Judgment Day is coming.
Mass Children entering America ILLEGALLY or ILLEGALLY with NO Parents is EVIL and PATHETIC. STOP Having Babies and Children and Overpopulating.

The Blue arc across the South is designated Gerrymandering so Blacks get elected. Done correctly, hardly any blacks would be in Congress. That would be good.

JerO

This is horsesh-t.
To interpret this to mean hil LIAR y got more votes than Trump in a few places is just wrong!

TRUMP had more votes than Commie Hildabeast, and you people cannot quit distorting the truth!

Even in most urban areas, she only won by a few!

sansured

Oh the wisdom of the American Founders. The Electoral College still protecting states rights & representation to this very day. Across this nation President Trump won an overwhelming 84% of all United States counties!!!
Won- 2,623
Lost- 489
Winning percentage- 84.29

Albert Ruiz

Trump won more counties. And Hillary won an overwhelming percentage of high rise apartment buildings. But neither of those things matter because our is a government of the *people*.

Sean Johnston

Yes. In the stupid areas with state funded abortions at will, sanctuary polities that harbor violent former deportees from justice, and have enormous welfare states, the number of worthless eaters that are totally indoctrinated to the state does tend to swell in numbers.
Fortunately for us this was anticipated by our founding fathers, who recognized the entire countryside did not want to be ruled by such madness ALL the time…
making it possible for them, if they almost ALL agreed, to push back against the few areas that are stacked so high in blue. 🙂
(which is why they want to change it…this is a republic, not a democracy.)

Kd Grayson

http://i67.tinypic.com/1zd823a.png
i VOTA! California endowment to register illegals to vote and get a Cal drivers license, register for school, college, register for Social Security and Welfare, Food Stamps.
their website admit to registering millions of undocumenteds since 2008.

In my humble opinion not even ALL that vote should vote… Only citizens and citizenship should be as hard to obtain as in Switzerland (in the old days)

Deplorable Dougie

Great article. Proves the population centers where people have their hand out for Liberalism to provide for them from cradle to grave voted Democratic.

Albert Ruiz

The facts say otherwise. Rural areas are massively subsidized by the taxes paid by city dwellers. Sorry if that conflicts with your unamerican tribal propaganda. Snowflake.

CatoYounger

Liberals are turning the US into a version of the Hunger Games. We’re all being pitted against each other by a far-off, out of touch elite. The rank and file liberal useful idiots think they’re actually part of this elite when in reality the elite is laughing behind their backs.

Tod Gillespie

Hi Max, I’m a bit late to the party for your beautiful prism map. I’m curious to see what the map looks like with prism height set to county population *density* rather than straight population. That way the volume of each prism would bind directly to the number of people in each district. For example, in your map Alaska has a much larger space-filling volume than Brooklyn, whereas in reality Brooklyn has ~3.5x the volume of votes. Doing this would make your map much more spiky, since county density ranges from 0.1 to 70k. But then using a sqrt or even cube root scale might be useful. Looks like invites to Blueshift are closed, otherwise I’d love to play around with it myself. Possible?

Christian Mark

A very telling line: “By extending each region into the 3rd dimension, it’s possible to show the relative importance of each region”. Right, in his view over populated urban centers where people are herded into Welfare Nanny State, Sanctuary Cities, these are the most “important” regions/ (Look up Agenda 21 and understand the plot unfolding.) As many comments have already stated, the founders understood the potential of this tyranny and created the Electoral College. The EC is to safeguard all Americans. Otherwise all of America would be dictated by NY, Chicago, SF, LA, Boston, and 5 or 6 Super Blue states. The EC was created specifically to combat this.

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